Why You Need Macros

In 2013, I started looking into a Elixir, a new language that looks like Ruby and runs on BEAM. One of the more interesting parts of the language is the early development of the [macro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macro_(computer_science) system, an idea borrowed from Lisp. With macros, the Elixir developers were able to iterate and provide a wide array of control structures without the need to bloat the core language.

While many developers look at macros as things to avoid, they are essential in building languages today. Without macros, a language needs to produce a big design first in order to ensure that the new feature fits within the large language ecosystem. C# and Java are prime examples of slowly evolving features that need to be blessed before they can be used. This leads to long release cycles where the cost of failure is high. Yet, the Clojure community was able to introduce core.async without requiring any impact to the core language library. At the heart of core.async is a complex state machine abstracted through a series of macros.

While the virtues of macros has been bouncing around in my head, I didn't have a clear expression of the idea until I listed to Robby Findler's Chicago 2015 Lambda Jam keynote on macros to prototype other languages. While the actual keynote video hasn't been posted, Robby has given the same talk in other forms and is well worth a listen.

As software continues to eat the world and we push the limits of complexity, we need to apply agile approaches to the platforms we select, starting with the languages we express our ideas in. Just as function, local scoping and module system have become a necessity for languages in the past, macros will become a must have going forward. Languages that don't have complete macro support will fail to keep up and soon be forgotten.

Does this mean you should incorporate the use of macros into your application? Sure. Pulling in libraries that abstract patterns, like HTTP ReST definitions, should be readily used to reduce boilerplate code and implement best practices. Master craftspeople with their platform will probably understand how to write macros to implement loops and control structures but will write them sparingly.