Domain-specific language

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A domain-specific language (DSL) is a programming language specialized to a specific application domain. This is in contrast to a general-purpose programming language, which is broadly applicable across domains. There are a wide variety of DSLs, ranging from widely used languages, such as SQL, down to languages used by only one or a few pieces of software, such as MUSH soft code. Simpler DSLs, specifically ones used by a single application, are sometimes informally called mini-languages. The line between general-purpose languages and domain-specific languages is not always sharp, as a language may have specialized features for a given domain, but be applicable more broadly, or conversely may in principle be capable of broad application but in practice used mainly for a specific domain. For example, Perl was originally developed as a text-processing and glue language, for the same domain as AWK and shell scripts, but was mostly used as a general-purpose programming language later on. In...

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