Smalltalk, Lisp, and syntax extension

From James' Cincom Smalltalk blog...

While Smalltalk doesn't have the macro system Lisp has, generics are a non-issue in ST, as is boxing/unboxing. Ditto the "simplification" things. One could summarize this whole thing as adding complexity to a language to make up for the glaring flaws.

While Smalltalk doesn't have syntax macros like Lisp, Smalltalk *does* have simpler block syntax and keyword arguments.

The effect is that new keyword messages can take block closures, which essentially delay evaluation until the method behind the message decides to evaluate them, and the message send looks an awful lot like new syntax, very clean.

Many uses of macros in Lisp, frankly, are simply created to hide the appearance of the lambda keyword. Of course there are more "legitimate" uses of macros, but these are less common.

So Smalltalk and Lisp are fairly evenly weighted in the syntax category in my book.

Ruby is pretty close, too, but has some wierd quirks where they didn't get closures quite right and very bad silent mistakes can be made. Python is further back in this category.