[REBOL] Re: Language-oriented programming
From: edoconnor:gma:il at: 20-Sep-2007 17:08
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!
Time to go study LOP at the knee of my local barista.
