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0 pointspacketlost2y ago0 comments

> The plan is not to support macros. A major reason is that macros tend to conflict with editor tooling, and I definitely have big plans for Roc's editor tooling!

I disagree! I've been working on a macro-heavy Rust project with both proc and declarative macros and the tooling makes them better. I'll add that there is immense value in turning repetitive code into "spreadsheet" style tables of data as well as being able to combine const expressions to get user controllable compile-time errors.

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rtfeldman2y ago

A common example of a tooling problem I've run into with Rust macros is that if I use a string interpolation macro (e.g. in an argument to println!, format!, or dbg!) a lot of VS Code tooling that works outside of macros stops working.

For example, I can't use normal context menu things on an interpolated variable name, like Go To Definition or Refactor. Similarly, if I do a semantic rename of a variable used in interpolation, it doesn't get renamed. Things like this.

Maybe these are solvable problems, but we're talking about widely used macros that have been in the standard library for many years, and even those don't have basic support for normal operations that Just Work in a non-macro context, in one of the most popular Rust editors!

packetlostOP2y ago

> if I use a string interpolation macro (e.g. in an argument to println!, format!, or dbg!) a lot of VS Code tooling that works outside of macros stops working

I imagine this isn't that hard of a problem to solve (though maybe relying on VSCode to handle renames is part of the issue), but low-enough on the annoyance scale that nobody cares enough to implement it. I'm not going to argue there aren't annoyances with macros and that they're harder for tooling to deal with, but I don't think that's a sufficient justification to not have them at all IMO.

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