http://ayende.comAyende @ RahienCopyright (C) Ayende Rahien 2004 - 2021 (c) 202660I have been thinking about doing a DSL for the bible. Not sure how I would go about it exactly. http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment12http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment12Mon, 24 Dec 2007 03:18:15 GMTa few months back when i had some down time, i played around with implementing porting parts of this to .net http://activemq.apache.org/camel/ l0t3k http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment11http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment11Sun, 23 Dec 2007 15:47:33 GMTAyende, one problem domain that is general and still close to many customers' world is questionnaires. I have created a DSL for that purpose, although using Gold Parser and not Boo. Questionnaires tend to (like most other things) start out pretty simple, but soon the customer wants to be able to define for instance questions that yield other questions, or to define new types of possible answers. Here's an example of a questionnaire definition: Section "Appliances" ? "How many vacuum cleaners have you got?" integer (0-10) for each answer ( ? "What's the brand of this vacuum cleaner?" list ("Siemens", "Miele", "Other") ? "When did you buy it?" integer (1970 - 2007) ) The downside of my suggestion (related to your book) is that it's an example of a 100% declarative DSL, where as Boo gives the power to mix declarative and imperative DSLs, and is strongest at imperative ones. I look forward to reading your book, Søren http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment10http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment10Sun, 23 Dec 2007 15:11:54 GMTAuto manufacturing / auto dealer would be a good subject, as you can have different lines of products with different sub-products and rules that govern what can be included in a final car package. Supply chain can be incorporated as well for part and automobile locations, etc. Plus, you have the opportunity to represent current CAFE standards as well as the mandate for a flexible rules engine that supports new CAFE standards, ala what's been passed recently in the US. http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment9http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment9Sun, 23 Dec 2007 15:01:08 GMTYeah Ayende, just like code generators, right? I think the point is the same: having a tool generating an underlying syntax via a gui interface or some wizards versus a having a language. On top of that you could push supported features as you like, to have it complex as you like ("...it has to be complex enough...") and regular expressions is something quite known... not deeply known maybe, but for who runs with scissors it is surely something at least known ("...be useful and familiar enough..."). Anyway, as you like ;) ! http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment8http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment8Sun, 23 Dec 2007 14:18:38 GMTAlonso, I don't think so, you can check a few of the fluent interfaces for regex, they seem to do most of the work just fine. http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment7http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment7Sun, 23 Dec 2007 14:04:07 GMTSteve, Thanks for the ideas. Yes, the DSL is based on Boo http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment6http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment6Sun, 23 Dec 2007 14:03:25 GMTMaybe a DSL to create regular expression? That may end up a little limitating, but for the 90% of the common needs could be a more human readable way of creating regular expressions. Ayende? What you say? http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment5http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment5Sun, 23 Dec 2007 14:00:25 GMTIs your DSL going to be built with Boo ? http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment4http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment4Sun, 23 Dec 2007 13:44:32 GMTYou mention orders - I'd like to see how flexible an ordering system would be using DSL where you have significant product line differences. ie. configuration of products that different customers have negotiated different costs. ie. 3rd party items where you produce maybe 2 of the 3 items, but one of them is actually manufactured at a different company. ie. backorders - determining when an order is complete for invoicing http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment3http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment3Sun, 23 Dec 2007 13:43:36 GMTReshef, I am going to address debugging, certainly. Although that may be a bit tricky, given that we purposefully do not want to look like a programming language. The problem with the domain is that it has to be complex enough to be useful and familiar enough that I wouldn't need to explain what is going on there. http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment2http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment2Sun, 23 Dec 2007 09:23:00 GMTI think that DSL debugging is a very important issue that needs to be addressed. For the subject, I think that my domain can be interesting - telephony. It has business plans, billing user account, interacting with telephony servers etc. http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment1http://ayende.com/3068/looking-for-a-dsl-idea#comment1Sun, 23 Dec 2007 08:51:19 GMT