Mike Salisbury...
> Maybe I read the original lesson wrong, but I understood the point of
> that article to be how to use Lisp macros (which he renames 'spel's so
> as not to confuse people).

I don't think so; it looks to me like a general intro, with macros included 
to get a feeling for what LISP can do.

> I'm new to Ruby, but it seems that Ruby
> doesn't offer such a mechanism.  Most solutions here seem to use
> method_missing to handle the new features, but that really isn't the
> same as a macro.

That's right. eval is as close as Ruby gets to macros, although ParseTree 
may give similar capability down the track (now even?).

> Does anyone know if macros will be introduced into Ruby in 1.9 or 2.0?
> Even something like Dylan's macros would be great.
> http://www.gwydiondylan.org/books/dpg/db_329.html
> The latest description of Ruby 2.0 I know of doesn't mention macros at
> all. http://www.rubygarden.org/ruby?Rite  Do people here think macros
> are not useful?

I daresay macros aren't a part of the "Ruby Way," and I'm pretty sure you 
won't see them in Ruby 2.0. This doesn't mean they can't be implemented as a 
library.

Cheers,
Dave