Monday, September 20, 2010

Domain-specific multimodeling, Language Cacophony and the DSL Unicorns


(Image from the fabulous Lady and the Unicorn, in the Museum of the Middle  Ages of Cluny, in Paris)

The Unicorn is a mythological creature inspiring a sense of peace, courage and harmony...

From the Wikipedia:
"The unicorn is the only fabulous beast that does not seem to have been conceived out of human fears. In even the earliest references he is fierce yet good, selfless yet solitary, but always mysteriously beautiful. He could be captured only by unfair means, and his single horn was said to neutralize poison."" 

The idea of being able to express in a Powerful, Intuitive, Unique Domain Specific Language all our business needs, avoiding the Language Cacophony and the multi-language nevrosis and impedance mismatch is something which seems to attract the most powerful minds of this century. As novel Jason and the Argonauts, they set out in search of the Golden Fleece



Here are some posts on the topic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain-specific_multimodeling

http://java.dzone.com/news/dsl-interoperability-and

http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/05/JavaTheLastBigLanguage
http://www.infoq.com/news/2007/08/multi-lingual-programming


More in general on Model Driven Development:
some real life experience here
http://www.theenterprisearchitect.eu/archive/2010/09/06/15-lessons-learned-during-the-development-of-a-model-driven-software-factory



Are we only at the beginning of a revolution which will see Generalist Languages like Java basically disappear as a main programming language, and be left only to support runtime more specific, business-driven languages? I hope so.

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