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Is tagging for the following question appropriate? Why or why not?

When did the idea of macros (user-defined code transformation) appear?

Tags: macros lisp scheme history forth

For example, should forth be included?

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2 Answers 2

up vote 2 down vote accepted

I don't really think [forth] fits. It mentions the Forth language, but it's not actually about it. If the question was rephrased as to include a sentence like "Did the first Forth implementation already have "IMMEDIATE", then the tag would fit.

The current way it's talked about is a passing minor detail.

That said, unless there's another tag that would be more appropriate, I wouldn't remove it.

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There is also the question of museum / academic implementations and those that are actually used. I'd leave it also. Not all implementations since epoch 0 need to be considered. –  Tim Post Jun 18 '10 at 19:37

I think it's okay. The second bullet-point makes a point about Forth (emphasis added):

What was the first programming language implementation to have Lisp-like macros (by "Lisp-like" I mean "using a readable Turing-complete language to do code-transformation")? (including non-Lisps -- Forth for example is quite old, but I'm not sure if the first Forth implementation already had "IMMEDIATE")

Since Forth may or may not be part of the answer to the question it makes sense to bring it to the attention of any Forth programmers by using the tag.

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