[yarvin9]

The difference between a language with symbolic names, and a language with names and macros, is a difference between one level of indirection, and two levels of indirection. My view is that one is hard enough.

Macros aren't functions. A function call is one thing. A macro can expand to arbitrary code. This code may contain function calls or other symbols.

Before you can even interpret these symbols, you have to expand the macros in your head. This is two steps, rather than one. Expanding is not tracing. This extra step is why whoever is reading your code is so easily tempted to give up and writes it again herself, with her own macro language.

I was not comparing FP to C. If you look at actual Hoon code, it's pretty comparable in size to other functional languages, and also in clarity once you learn to read it. Obviously C is much fatter and harder to understand (and has macros, of course).

[kazinator]

A function can contain arbitrary code behind the call. It can be a remote procedure call to a server, such that it is impossible to reverse-engineer what it does, beyond black-box testing.