There are two types of DSLs, internal and external. External ones are the custom syntax you talk of, internal are DSLs that use features or quirks of a host lan

There are two types of DSLs, internal and external. External ones are the custom syntax you talk of, internal are DSLs that use features or quirks of a host language to appear different. XML or SQL are external DSLs, much of the cool Ruby stuff like Rake and Rails are internal DSLs. The examples presented are all internal (presumably for a good reason). There are advantages to both approaches. Read Martin Fowler's discussion at http://martinfowler.com/dslwip/ http://martinfowler.com/dslwip/