2025-08-10 –, Cassiopeia
Language: English
A Domain-Specific Language is a computer language that’s made and suitable for a specific domain — dûh. But what happens when that domains is inhabited and operated by people that are – gasp! – not developers?! This is when a DSL has the opportunity to shine, and even outshine generic AI.
The field of Domain-Specific Languages has been going through a quasi-perpetual, reincarnating Gartner hype cycle for decades. Nevertheless, there are many DSLs out there, with many aimed squarely at software devs, and some at non-devs.
In this talk, I’ll explain what a DSL is and is made up of, and why you‘d want to make one – especially for non-devs! –, why and how to do that using something called “projectional editing”, why and how DSLs are better than AI, and why DSLs should be a standard tool in our dev-toolbox.
Meinte has been helping various organizations with building and deploying model-driven solutions ever since he was bitten by the “meta-bug” in 2007. His book “Building User-Friendly DSLs” (Manning Publications) was published October 2024. Currently, he’s implementing a DSL for controlling industrial lasers. Earlier, he’s worked for the Dutch ministry of health on opening up and regulating travel during the COVID-19 pandemic using certificates. He’s also a co-founder of the LionWeb initiative for interoperable language-oriented modeling tools.