[corinroyal]

I'm always baffled by hate for DSLs until I realize that what people are criticizing aren't DSLs, but DSLs you have to write from scratch. If you host your DSL on Lisp, then all you have to write is your domain logic, not the base language. Most of the work is already done, and your language is useful from day one. I don't understand why people insist on creating new languages from scratch just to watch them die on the vine, when these langs could have been hosted DSLs on Lisp and actually get used.

[TimTheTinker]

Not just Lisp, but any language that has strong support for either literal in-language data expressions like JSON or YAML, or meta-language support like Ruby, Elixir, JSX/TSX (or both!).

Every time you write a React JSX expression, terraform file, config.yaml, etc., you're using a DSL.

I once wrote a JSON DSL in Ruby that I used for a template-based C# code generator. This enabled a .NET reporting web app to create arbitrarily shaped reports from arbitrary rdmbs tables, saving our team thousands of hours. Another team would upload report data to a SQL Server instance, write a JSON file in the DSL, check it against a tiny schema validator website, submit it, and their reports would soon be live. One of the most productive decisions I ever made.

[hot_gril]

Technically yeah, but JSX isn't what people think of when you mention a DSL. I know JS, I know HTML, so I know JSX immediately since it's just templatized HTML inside JS.

[CyberDildonics]

This is generally a terrible way to work. Making a bunch of custom syntax even in the same language is just adding more stuff to memorize for no gain.

Even in C using the "goes to operator" of while(i --> 0) or using special operator overloading like the C++ STL >> and << operators for concatenation is just making people memorize nonsense so someone writing can be clever.

People don't give presentations with riddles and limericks either. It can be clever as a puzzle but when things need to get done, it is just indulging someone showing off their cleverness at the expense of everyone who has to deal with it.

[f1shy]

I think you misunderstood what a DSL is, or at least the point of the OP?

We are advocating exactly to keep the syntax the same as the base language, and add semantic value through the abstractions of the language.

[f1shy]

Exactly. Good DSL are typically (although not always) embedded in another. When that is the case, they tend to be a perfect abstraction (if decently implemented)

[PaulHoule]

with static imports in Java I buld DSLs that are basically Lisp style DSLs like

   var f = f1(f2(a,b,f3(c,quote(f4)))

which have a grammar backed by the full faith and credit of the Java type system. You can code gen the static imports.

[seanmcdirmid]

Eh, you can host DSLs in Kotlin and C# these days, you don’t even have to sell your engineering team on Lisp. The biggest challenge is to explain how an embedded DSL differs from being just a library (interop outside of the eDSL to the host language is still hard).