Yes. A lot of the meta-programming is actually programming over the structure. For example, given a Java class, you could generate database code. In Java, this relies heavily on introspection, but you if you're interested in doing this in a type-safe way then you could look at Generic Programming (in Haskell).
Also, you can generate code (at runtime) which is type-safe, compile the code, etc. Everything you ask for is possible in Haskell, however, it is definitely more complicated than in Lisp.
Compiling code at runtime may improve performance, but it doesn't give the kind of guarantees that static typing gives you.
Static type checking proves that certain invariants hold at runtime and hence that certain defects are not possible. If a program can manipulate itself at runtime in arbitrary ways (not just reflect on itself in a read-only fashion), those proofs become invalid.
Comments
Yes. A lot of the meta-programming is actually programming over the structure. For example, given a Java class, you could generate database code. In Java, this relies heavily on introspection, but you if you're interested in doing this in a type-safe way then you could look at Generic Programming (in Haskell).
Also, you can generate code (at runtime) which is type-safe, compile the code, etc. Everything you ask for is possible in Haskell, however, it is definitely more complicated than in Lisp.
Compiling code at runtime may improve performance, but it doesn't give the kind of guarantees that static typing gives you.
Static type checking proves that certain invariants hold at runtime and hence that certain defects are not possible. If a program can manipulate itself at runtime in arbitrary ways (not just reflect on itself in a read-only fashion), those proofs become invalid.