If you’ve read this blog before, or are unfortunate enough to have an actual personal relationship with me, you’ll know that I have strong opinions and can be, shall we
Here’s my opinion, a well-developed DSL could even be arguably more flexible than say Python even with existing libraries on their specific domains. So, if one is just limited to domains, they may be very well be preferable to general languages.
I have coded in C#, Python, C++, and currently nearly everyday, G’MIC. Which one of those are a DSL? The last one. What it is? It’s a Domain-Specific Language that has been geared toward raster graphics image processing. Why do I use it? Looking at the stack-based processing, commands, built-in mathematical functions. It seems that it has a lot more things that are built-in than say Pillow library for Python and other things. And I only do create images with code, so I am happy with this, and I even did things like Python itertools combinatorics with more things like rank2list/list2rank variation of those combinatorics which aren’t image processing by themselves, but can aid to it.
If I feel that it is way too limited for that Domain, then I wouldn’t use it. DSLs are only good if the other options are much more difficult to build with and their flexibility are often enough to entice their audience which is one with limited use cases. Of course, generic languages are usually better even than most DSL even within their domains because of wider support, and wider audience. More DSLs would be better than generics given enough time and support for their domains in my opinion.
Here’s my opinion, a well-developed DSL could even be arguably more flexible than say Python even with existing libraries on their specific domains. So, if one is just limited to domains, they may be very well be preferable to general languages.
I have coded in C#, Python, C++, and currently nearly everyday, G’MIC. Which one of those are a DSL? The last one. What it is? It’s a Domain-Specific Language that has been geared toward raster graphics image processing. Why do I use it? Looking at the stack-based processing, commands, built-in mathematical functions. It seems that it has a lot more things that are built-in than say Pillow library for Python and other things. And I only do create images with code, so I am happy with this, and I even did things like Python itertools combinatorics with more things like rank2list/list2rank variation of those combinatorics which aren’t image processing by themselves, but can aid to it.
If I feel that it is way too limited for that Domain, then I wouldn’t use it. DSLs are only good if the other options are much more difficult to build with and their flexibility are often enough to entice their audience which is one with limited use cases. Of course, generic languages are usually better even than most DSL even within their domains because of wider support, and wider audience. More DSLs would be better than generics given enough time and support for their domains in my opinion.