Homoiconicity

Kind: quality-attribute

Layer: Declarative Core

Record: architecture:homoiconicity

Severity: contextual

Scope: language, metaprogramming

Canonical: Ontology

The degree to which a language represents its programs in its own data structures, so programs can be inspected and transformed as data.

Listed in Architecture principles, after Manifest-Based Design and before Code as Data.

Requires

• Code-as-Data Representation

Reinforces

• Metaprogramming

Enables

• Macro Systems
• DSLs

Conflicts with

• Opaque Syntax Trees

In tension with

• Readability

Tensions

• Homoiconicity / Readability

Violated by

• String-Based Code Generation

Refactored by

• Syntax Tree Generation

Severity

• contextual

Category

• Metaprogramming / Language-Oriented Architecture

Reinforced by

• Code as Data

Linked from

• Every record has a kind
• The structural domain
• The principle architecture
• Metaprogramming / Language-Oriented Architecture
• Core Vocabulary
• Metaprogramming / Language-Oriented Architecture
• Quality Attributes
• Severity levels
• The resolutions