I think the term ‘Domain Specific Language’ (DSL) is starting to become over-used and is being applied to things that aren’t really languages at all.

A Tale of Two Designers

When I think about explaining DSLs to people, the examples that spring to mind are languages like SQL, Regular Expressions, maybe even BNF, or CORBA IDL. And if I think about Why these languages exist, I imagine that somewhere, at some time, somebody thought:

I’m going to design a new language that is specifically crafted for solving this particular problem.

I like DSLs. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say I love them. They are powerful, expressive, and allow people who are eager to describe a solution or encode information (be they programmers or otherwise) to escape the complexities of imperative paradigms and Von Neumann thinking, permitting a strong focus on the actual problem.

In contrast to the above, the way in which I’ve most frequently seen the term DSL used of late is from people thinking something more like this: Continue reading →