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> Macros aren't required for reducing boilerplate and don't necessarily reduce boilerplate compared to a non-macro solution in an expressive language.

So i suspect you are thinking of ruby metaprogramming, in that case you have good and bad. With macro you can expand your code and have static tool reason about your code (IDE à la Éclipse). In the other hand in metra prog. you have all the info availlable at runtime and it is more easy to implement.

> I just don't like the difference that being able to cook up your match using macros makes a huge difference when it comes to programming productivity.

For the specific racket's match you can build your own match rule (http://docs.racket-lang.org/reference/match.html?q=match#%28...) and that is macro power..

In my own use of lisps i havn't realy used any macro.

> "Macros are a secret sauce"

It is probably an overstatement, if they have been useless for you (and me) doesn't mean they are.

[irahul]

> It is probably an overstatement, if they have been useless for you (and me) doesn't mean they are.

You are conflating "useless" with "secret sauce". I didn't claim they are useless. I said macros are a meme and are useful in very limited circumstances.