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People in the thread have been citing HTML and SQL as examples of DSLs. Those are examples of universal languages but not of domain-specific languages as envisa
by bjourne 8y ago
People in the thread have been citing HTML and SQL as examples of DSLs. Those are examples of universal languages but not of domain-specific languages as envisaged by the proponents of DSLs.
The DSL "philosophy" as presented in for example The Pragmatic Programmer from 2000 was that every programmer should write his or her own domain language as the situation requires. That every project should come equipped with its own language, codifying that business problems business rules.
That philosophy, and the surrounding hype, has completely died down. Put simply, it wasn't a good idea. More languages makes it harder to communicate, not easier. Plus, writing a good DSL that someone other than the creator of said DSL can understand is tons of work. Instead, what one aims for is generality.
- usgroup 8y agoggplot2 is a solid dsl example. Use it with margrittr. I agree with this in the main unfortunately ... I was a proponent of DSLs and did my best to try make them whenever practical. The only pattern that’s worked out for me is the builder pattern. This doesn’t require much work, and you get something functional that works as you might expect that people appreciate. Again ggplot, epic example. Other examples , Varnish, Dockerfile, Nginx, ufw, etc