I’m learning Scheme from the SICP and I’m getting the impression that a big part of what makes Scheme and, even more so, LISP special is the macro system. But, since macros are expanded at compile-time, why don’t people make equivalent macro systems for C/Python/Java/whatever? For example, one could bind the python command to expand-macros | python or whatever. The code would still be portable to people who don’t use the macro system, one would just expand the macros before publishing code. But I don’t know of anything like that except templates in C++/Haskell, which I gather aren’t really the same. What about LISP, if anything, makes it easier to implement macro systems?

I’m learning Scheme from the SICP and I’m getting the impression that a big part of what makes Scheme and, even more so, LISP special is the macro system. But, since macros are expanded at compile-time, why don’t people make equivalent macro systems for C/Python/Java/whatever? For example, one could bind the python command to expand-macros | python or whatever. The code would still be portable to people who don’t use the macro system, one would just expand the macros before publishing code. But I don’t know of anything like that except templates in C++/Haskell, which I gather aren’t really the same. What about LISP, if anything, makes it easier to implement macro systems?

I’m learning Scheme from the SICP and I’m getting the impression that a big part of what makes Scheme and, even more so, LISP special is the macro system. But, since macros are expanded at compile-time, why don’t people make equivalent macro systems for C/Python/Java/whatever? For example, one could bind the python command to expand-macros | python or whatever. The code would still be portable to people who don’t use the macro system, one would just expand the macros before publishing code. But I don’t know of anything like that except templates in C++/Haskell, which I gather aren’t really the same. What about LISP, if anything, makes it easier to implement macro systems?