23 lines
1.3 KiB
Plaintext
23 lines
1.3 KiB
Plaintext
macro
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/makroh/ , n. [techspeak] A name (possibly followed by a formal arg list)
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that is equated to a text or symbolic expression to which it is to be
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expanded (possibly with the substitution of actual arguments) by a macro
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expander. This definition can be found in any technical dictionary; what
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those won't tell you is how the hackish connotations of the term have
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changed over time. The term macro originated in early assemblers, which
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encouraged the use of macros as a structuring and information-hiding device.
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During the early 1970s, macro assemblers became ubiquitous, and sometimes
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quite as powerful and expensive as HLL s, only to fall from favor as
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improving compiler technology marginalized assembler programming (see
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languages of choice ). Nowadays the term is most often used in connection
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with the C preprocessor, LISP, or one of several special-purpose languages
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built around a macro-expansion facility (such as TeX or Unix's [nt]roff
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suite). Indeed, the meaning has drifted enough that the collective macros is
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now sometimes used for code in any special-purpose application control
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language (whether or not the language is actually translated by text
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expansion), and for macro-like entities such as the keyboard macros
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supported in some text editors (and PC TSR or Macintosh INIT/CDEV keyboard
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enhancers).
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