In many (but not all) cases, yes - because you don't just write programs. You have to read them and maintain them and update them too - sometimes 'forever'. A D

In many (but not all) cases, yes - because you don't just write programs. You have to read them and maintain them and update them too - sometimes 'forever'. A DSL is designed with the whole lifecycle in mind. Also, these tools can come with things like specialized analyzers, debuggers, verifiers etc for those specific domains, which can help increase assurances and improve your ROI a lot. Cryptol is a decent example of a domain-specific cryptographic toolkit which can easily do verification of C code against specifications, for example. It can't do much besides writing crypto, but it's pretty good at that. In other words, the idea is that the cost of the toolset implementation is amortized over the whole lifespan of the project, and multiplied many times over for every use - it's not just the initial implementation. Naturally this approach doesn't always work of course, for a million reasons that might be specific to your use case.