Chapter 11: Metaprogramming

The last article read was “An Introduction to Metaprogramming”, an interesting article where Ariel explains the concept and some examples of metaprogramming.

Starting of describing the different types of metaprograms, like compilers, interpreters, parser generators, assemblers and preprocessors, metaprograms come in many shapes and forms, which main goal is to eliminate or reduce error-prone programming tasks. I have heard of this concept as a utopic approach to things, however, I haven’t seen metaprogramming first hand. At first, I thought it was a really complex way to do things, but after reading the article, it doesn’t go that deep into weirdness.

Beginning with the first example; it clarified how the concept of metaprogramming works, a script that wrote another file with the code expected. While the ruby snippet shown was not some other world stuff, but the example is pretty clear, we can write codes through code.

Now, the second example goes a little bit deeper, but it isn’t a really complex code whatsoever. It still keeps the simplicity of how we can write this type of codes and expect great utility from them.  

Concluding, I started a little skeptical about the concept of programs that wrote programs, but now that I see how this concept is being brought to practice, I now understand its simplicity and use. I think this can be a really interesting and powerful tool to be developed in the years to come. I mean, we have machines that build machines, now we have programs that make programs, what’s next, humans that make humans? O wait, I think we already do that.

I hope to see more metaprogramming thought the course and career. The implementation seen in the article may only scratch the surface, it would be interesting to know to which limits can we take this approach.

References:

Ortiz Ariel (2007). An Introduction to Metaprogramming. Available on: http://webcem01.cem.itesm.mx:8005/s201713/tc3049/metaprogramming.html