[REBOL] Re: Language-oriented programming
From: tim-johnsons::web::com at: 20-Sep-2007 14:58
On Thursday 20 September 2007, Ed O'Connor wrote:
> On 9/20/07, Tim Johnson wrote:
> > On Thursday 20 September 2007, Ed O'Connor wrote:
> > > Language-oriented programming is interesting and caused a small stir a
> > > couple of years ago. Unfortunately, it hasn't gone anywhere,
> > >
> > :-) What about parse?
> >
> > Common LISP has used the DSL approach for decades, I believe.
>
> This is true, and I didn't mean to suggest that DSLs emerged 2 years
> ago, but the term language-oriented did. Sadly, I don't think are any
> DSL lanuages (in the classic sense) which are considered mainstream.
>
> There is quite a spectrum of what DSL-ish constructs:
> 1- a high-level abstraction
> 2- a function, or collection of functions
> 3- a markup/formatting language or shorthand
> 4- a little language such as SQL or the UNIX utils
> 5- a 4GL or NLP-ish script such as ZIL (Inform Language) or AppleScript
> 6- a lingo or domain language (e.g., Iced Decaf Triple Vanilla Skim latte)
>
> But I prefer not to hash that out here. My (admittedly ineffective)
> definition of a DSL is more like the FCC's definition of indecency: "I
> know it when I see it." I suspect that the less a construct
> looks/feels like something that might be called a DSL (such as #6
> above), the more successful it probably is!
I think of DSL in terms of degree. As in OOP there are degrees - I used to do
OOP in ansi C. It wasn't Object programming like smalltalk or even python,
but employed some of the priciples.
I'm happy that rebol provides *some* degree of DSL
> Time to go study LOP at the knee of my local barista.
That would be an OOPs if I did that :-)
tj
