[greghendershott]

This seems unnecessarily harsh.

Capitalization isn't a deep signal.

There are lIsPs like Clojure that argue (> data functions macros). Although I mostly disagree (for example I love Racket macros), I understand and appreciate the sentiment. I have heard it from other people who have worked with a variety of LiSp code bases over the years. TL;DR: Any form of non-trivial DSL needs supporting materials like documentation and a simple, clear design.

Although it is nice to be able to expand macros, fully-expanded macro-generating macros are clear in approximately the same way as assembly language. It is impressive if you can navigate that, but even more impressive if can manage not to need to do so.

[dkersten]

Clojure argues that (> data functions macros), but it still has macros and accepts that they are not only useful, but sometimes necessary. Clojure's core.async would have had to be built into the compiler, if it wasn't for macros. Just because it prefers data to functions and functions to macros, doesn't mean that it doesn't recognise the importance or usefulness of all three.

[lispm]

> lIsPs like Clojure that argue (> data functions macros).

That's not really Lisp related. It's more like how the community likes to see code being written.

For example I would regularly make use of macros to provide more declarative syntax various programming concepts.

There are Lisp dialects which are light on macros and some which are using macros a lot more. For example the base language of Common Lisp already makes use of many macros by providing them to the user as part of the language (from DEFUN, DEFCLASS, ... INCF, upto LOOP).