In any language you can build a interpreter/compiler for any other language but thats not the point. The point is that you can do random AST transformation at compiletime.
You think of macros as a kind of pay of for s-exp syntax. I have to say that even without macros I would think s-exp syntax is nicer. Sure in Ruby you can do alot when you play around with that suger stuff but this stuff often doesn't come free. See this blogpost for an example of what I mean: http://briancarper.net/blog/579/keyword-arguments-ruby-cloju...
Depending on what you do you are writting a lot of macros. In lisp the interface to a library is almost always in a DSL style witch makes them easy to use. See this list here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3968055/are-there-any-clo.... In your own Application your maybe not going to need them that often depending on what you do.
What you discribe is just a macrosystem. Having macros in a language with syntax is duable (look at Dylan or Plot) but you will find that getting everything nice and easy to use is much harder then you think. If CoffeeScript has a macrosystem great. I don't really know CoffeeScript well enought. Could you provide me with some nice examples of how people use this in CoffeeScript?
If I where you I would just learn enought lisp that you can trie it out yourself.
You think of macros as a kind of pay of for s-exp syntax. I have to say that even without macros I would think s-exp syntax is nicer. Sure in Ruby you can do alot when you play around with that suger stuff but this stuff often doesn't come free. See this blogpost for an example of what I mean: http://briancarper.net/blog/579/keyword-arguments-ruby-cloju...
Depending on what you do you are writting a lot of macros. In lisp the interface to a library is almost always in a DSL style witch makes them easy to use. See this list here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3968055/are-there-any-clo.... In your own Application your maybe not going to need them that often depending on what you do.
What you discribe is just a macrosystem. Having macros in a language with syntax is duable (look at Dylan or Plot) but you will find that getting everything nice and easy to use is much harder then you think. If CoffeeScript has a macrosystem great. I don't really know CoffeeScript well enought. Could you provide me with some nice examples of how people use this in CoffeeScript?
If I where you I would just learn enought lisp that you can trie it out yourself.