I agree! A Lisp coder should define a new macro only rarely. Junior coders should avoid doing it altogether.
Macros make Lisp code hard to read. Every time I see a call to define-minor-mode, a groan a little: that macro saves about 5 tokens (relative to just writing out code involving only functions everyone knows) at the cost of making me bounce back and forth at least 3 times between (a buffer showing) define-minor-mode's doc string and the call.
Comments
I agree! A Lisp coder should define a new macro only rarely. Junior coders should avoid doing it altogether.
Macros make Lisp code hard to read. Every time I see a call to define-minor-mode, a groan a little: that macro saves about 5 tokens (relative to just writing out code involving only functions everyone knows) at the cost of making me bounce back and forth at least 3 times between (a buffer showing) define-minor-mode's doc string and the call.