[neilv]

Developing domain-specific languages/minilanguages is claimed by many to be idiomatic for many Lisps.

And DSL is an especially strength of Racket (especially with the syntax objects, pattern-based syntax transformers, module system and submodules, and `#lang`).

But, just to avoid giving non-Racketeers the wrong impression... I don't recall anyone ever calling a piece of Racket code non-idiomatic merely because it didn't introduce a DSL or syntax extension.

In my (abandoned) Racket book, I intended to get people commercial-grade productive the first day, and introducing syntax extension wouldn't come until calendar weeks/months later. (Related: there'd be an entire chapter at the end, entitled "Don't Use `eval`", starting out like: https://lists.racket-lang.org/users/archive/2014-July/063597... :)

[mumblemumble]

I've spent some time looking at Racket open source projects, and I did not come away with the impression that one must start by creating one's own #lang. There are a lot of custom DSLs out there, but it seems to me that most of them come about, not because using Racket compelled the author to create a DSL, but because creating a DSL compelled the author to use Racket. No other platform I know of (not even MPS) seems to even come close in terms of ease of use and number of batteries included.

I could admittedly be projecting here. Wanting to create a DSL is what brought me back to Racket after a long hiatus. But I don't think so. Exhibit B is that, if you go to Racket's Discord or Slack, you'll see that people are mostly discussing how to solve concrete problems with standard language features. The volume of talk about macros and #langs is much, much smaller.