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by SPBS 1019 days ago
It's like (speaking) languages really. The good ones are ones that have always been there and people have just sort of accepted into the mainstream (like English). Don't invent your own language. If you can do it in an existing language, don't invent your own.

SQL and CSS selectors fit the bill. Everyone has just kind of accepted them now. It's not an excuse to try creating new languages for every new thing, it's an uphill task.
1 comments
em-bee 1019 days ago
If you can do it in an existing language, don't invent your own

then we should all be using c, lisp, smalltalk and perl (add your favourite old language here). because most younger languages don't bring anything new to the table.

The good ones are ones that have always been there

esperanto? not exactly popular, but it is definitely better than english and solves problems that english can't. (it's just that people don't realize the problem yet)

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SPBS 1019 days ago
I guess I should qualify it by saying "Domain Specific Language" instead of "language". Newer programming languages are different because they have a huge body of extremely clever people working on it making sure it's up to standard. DSLs do not reach the same amount of rigor, they're just there. Some parsers loosely thrown together. Where's the documentation? The specification? The language servers, the editor support? None. Don't invent your own DSL (other than for yourself).
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em-bee 1019 days ago
i am just picking your examples apart :-)

i think we both want the same outcome, that is well designed and useful languages, whether they are DSLs or not, and i agree that most DLSs probably aren't that. but not all general languages are getting that kind of rigor from the start either. some get it rather late after they became popular enough to have demand for fixing the problems that stem from their initial ad-hoc design. i am looking at javascript and php here in particular, but there are probably others.

DSLs, due to their nature are less likely to ever reach the level of popularity where its worth it to fix design problems. general languages on the other hand are more likely designed by people who care and without the pressure of a quick solution. (and its my understanding that javascript was a quick solution, which would kind of prove the point)

esperanto, btw, was designed with rigor.

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