A Possible Vision for Macros in Swift

[Karl]

@flowtoolz

Macros by themselves might appeal to some group of users. So would many other potential extensions to Swift. But do they yield the best return on time and attention invested?

I actually think Macros are one of the features that would benefit the widest subset of Swift developers. Things like custom literals, and the ability to synthesise conformances to library protocols, are huge.

@flowtoolz

To the degree macros are just for subjective syntax sugar, they are by definition non-essential. And to the degree they fill gaps in the language, the language itself should do that.

Macros are far, far more than syntax sugar.

One of the things developers consistently say they love about Swift compared to other languages is how much it focuses on checking things at build-time rather than at run-time. Macros allow us to do much, much more at build-time; they are essentially build-time plugins.