I like your atCompileTime approach. It would seem to open up the kinds of things the compiler can do while still not requiring anything special about the run-time environment. I'm leaning toward something like this.
> Technically, if your compile phase ran the code in a LavaScript-capable environment and you kept a running total of all the compiled code in order to output it at the end, then macros should be fine.
To be sure I understand, would this be kind of like if LavaScript both compiled every expression to JavaScript (as it does now) and ran it through the atCompileTime evaluator, so as to make it available for use in the compiler space?
To be sure I understand, would this be kind of like if LavaScript both compiled every expression to JavaScript (as it does now) and ran it through the atCompileTime evaluator, so as to make it available for use in the compiler space?
That and atCompileTime were almost independent trains of thought, but yeah, I think you understand it.
The compiler would compile a command, write the compiled command to the output file, evaluate the command itself, then repeat with the next command.
for command in input
let compiled = compile( command ) in
output-file.write compiled
execute compiled
Like I said, I don't know if this applies to your case very well, since the compiler's environment may not adequately simulate the actual application conditions.
