[Haskell-cafe] What *is* a DSL?

[Emil Axelsson]

Hi,

A DSL is just a domain-specific language. It doesn't imply any specific 
implementation technique.

An *embedded* DSL is a library implemented in a more general language, 
which has been designed to give the "feeling" of a stand-alone language. 
Still nothing about implementation.

A *shallow embedding* of a DSL is when the "evaluation" is done 
immediately by the functions and combinators of the DSL. I don't think 
it's possible to draw a line between a combinator library and a 
shallowly embedded DSL.

A *deep embedding* is when interpretation is done on an intermediate 
data structure.

/ Emil



Günther Schmidt skrev:
> Hi all,
> 
> 
> for people that have followed my posts on the DSL subject this question 
> probably will seem strange, especially asking it now.
> 
> I have read quite a lot lately on the subject, most of it written by the 
> great old ones, (come on guys you know whom I mean :)).
> 
> What I could gather from their papers was, that a DSL is basically 
> something entirely abstract as such, ie. it allows you build and combine 
> expressions in a language which is specific for your problem domain.
> Irregardless of further details on how to do that, and there are quite a 
> few, the crux as such is that they are abstract of "meaning".
> 
> The meaning depends how you *evaluate* the expression, which can be in 
> more than merely one way, which is where, as far as I understand it, the 
> true power lies.
> 
> 
> So, you might wonder, since I figured it out this far, why ask what a 
> DSL is?
> 
> Because out there I see quite a lot of stuff that is labeled as DSL, I 
> mean for example packages on hackage, quite useuful ones too, where I 
> don't see the split of assembling an expression tree from evaluating it, 
> to me that seems more like combinator libraries.
> 
> Thus:
> 
> What is a DSL?
> 
> 
> Günther
> 
> 
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