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Integration Watch: So, you want to write a little language?


By Andrew Binstock
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October 15, 2008 —  (Page 1 of 2)

Writing and implementing a language are nothing new to many computer geeks. University comp-sci curricula regularly require designing and implementing a toy language (complete with a compiler and, these days, a virtual machine).

This exercise often gives programmers a bug that lasts for years: the desire to write and implement their own language. The fantasy often wears off over time, however, diminished by the complexity of the task; the low likelihood that the resultant language would find adoption beyond the developer and a few acquaintances; and, most important, the fact that, aside from a narrow set of personal needs, new languages tend to mimic existing, established ones.

Industry and commerce, however, are a different world altogether. Most large software packages need some kind of little language, or domain-specific language (DSL), to be used for commands, macros and scripting. Regrettably, many DSLs today are designed to use XML syntax in order to facilitate the language parsing. Use of a data interchange format as the defining grammar makes many human-oriented DSLs, such as Ant’s syntax, very unpleasant.

Good DSLs are naturally expressive; that is, their language reflects the problem domain they address. Once such a language is learned, it is easy to remember. A good example is the data and text manipulation language awk. Its syntax is so simple that you can return to it years after you last looked at it and be productive in a few minutes with just a reference card. Of course, awk’s advanced capabilities involve a larger, fuller syntax, but even that retains a remarkable ease of use.

Designing good DSLs or full, expressive languages is no easy job. And yet, it is the design stage that frequently will determine a language’s appeal. For example, a substantial part of Ruby’s attraction is what users describe as its intuitive syntax, pleasant expressiveness and brevity. (Compare those sentiments with your experience writing Ant files.)

The challenge of good language design is that it is little taught and rarely discussed. It remains tucked away as though it were the province of a cabal of specialists with Ph.Ds who scare the uninitiated with terms such as “monads” and “lambda calculus.”


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