[mkremins]

core.async [1] is basically the canonical example of a Clojure library that relies on macros to do its job, although surprisingly few macros actually need to be exposed in the public API. Most notable is the go macro, which performs deep-walking code transformation on its body, permitting clients to write async code in a straightforward, boilerplate-free way.

There's usually a heavy emphasis in the Clojure community on keeping macros as small as possible – the thinking is that any behavior that can be implemented with ordinary functions should be, and most macros should be lightweight wrappers over these functions. This seems to fit together well with what I've observed: functional programming idioms often circumvent some of the more common legacy uses of macros in practice, relegating macros to a still-essential but less prevalent role.

[1] https://github.com/clojure/core.async

[auvrw]

> the thinking is that any behavior that can be implemented with ordinary functions should be

this is what i was trying to say.