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DSLs are actually common in javascript. JQuery, one of the most popular libraries in all of javascript is mostly a DSL for DOM manipulation. Lodash/underscore

by qwer 10y ago

DSLs are actually common in javascript. JQuery, one of the most popular libraries in all of javascript is mostly a DSL for DOM manipulation. Lodash/underscore is mostly a DSL for list manipulation. Admittedly, JS doesn't have operator overloading, but I personally think that's a good thing.

goatlover 10y ago
Operator overloading in Python made the Pandas library possible where you can treat a DataFrame syntactically like you can in R, which is really nice for data science.
- qwer 10y ago
  "Made it possible", or "made it look like R"? add() vs. + is just a mild inconvenience IMO compared to the inconvenience of overloading abuse that I normally see ( like sqlalchemy IMO). I'd personally rather know what to expect from an operator.
  - goatlover 10y ago
    It's not just arithmetic, it's also being able to use comparison operators to filter, which is really convenient. What languages like R do at the syntactic level is make the programming language closer to math, where you can do things like add vectors or multiply matrices using simple operators.
  - goatlover 10y ago
    Also, it adds up (no pun intended). You're right that add() vs. + for a simple case when you only do it a few times is no big deal. But it is a bigger deal when you do it a lot, and the arithmetic can be a little more complicated. We could by analogy apply this argument to adding integers and floats together. It's more convenient to use the + operator for that, but someone could argue that an add() function is just a minor inconvenience, so why bother overloading the + operator? That is until you have to use it hundreds of times.
falcolas 10y ago
We apparently have a very different definition of DSLs. Both jQuery and Lodash are, to me, libraries with lots of functions. A DSL, to me, would be a change in the underlying language being interpreted. i.e. describe file("foo") do it { should exist } it { should be_owned_by "root" } end vs. _.map(["a"], function(s) {alert(s)})
- qwer 10y ago
  Except your rspec example isn't a change to the underlying language is it? Also, Check out mocha for the JavaScript equivalent. Also, when you use only one function of lodash, you can't call it a language, but there are chains and flows for creating powerful pipelines for collection processing.
- spion 10y ago
  describe("something", () => { it(should(exist)) it(should(be_owned_by, "root")) }); Also _.map(["a"], s => alert(s)) Or just _.map(["a"], alert)

by qwer 10y ago

goatlover 10y ago

Operator overloading in Python made the Pandas library possible where you can treat a DataFrame syntactically like you can in R, which is really nice for data science.

qwer 10y ago
"Made it possible", or "made it look like R"? add() vs. + is just a mild inconvenience IMO compared to the inconvenience of overloading abuse that I normally see ( like sqlalchemy IMO). I'd personally rather know what to expect from an operator.
- goatlover 10y ago
  It's not just arithmetic, it's also being able to use comparison operators to filter, which is really convenient. What languages like R do at the syntactic level is make the programming language closer to math, where you can do things like add vectors or multiply matrices using simple operators.
- goatlover 10y ago
  Also, it adds up (no pun intended). You're right that add() vs. + for a simple case when you only do it a few times is no big deal. But it is a bigger deal when you do it a lot, and the arithmetic can be a little more complicated. We could by analogy apply this argument to adding integers and floats together. It's more convenient to use the + operator for that, but someone could argue that an add() function is just a minor inconvenience, so why bother overloading the + operator? That is until you have to use it hundreds of times.

falcolas 10y ago

We apparently have a very different definition of DSLs. Both jQuery and Lodash are, to me, libraries with lots of functions. A DSL, to me, would be a change in the underlying language being interpreted. i.e. describe file("foo") do it { should exist } it { should be_owned_by "root" } end vs. _.map(["a"], function(s) {alert(s)})

qwer 10y ago
Except your rspec example isn't a change to the underlying language is it? Also, Check out mocha for the JavaScript equivalent. Also, when you use only one function of lodash, you can't call it a language, but there are chains and flows for creating powerful pipelines for collection processing.
spion 10y ago
describe("something", () => { it(should(exist)) it(should(be_owned_by, "root")) }); Also _.map(["a"], s => alert(s)) Or just _.map(["a"], alert)