in reply to Re: Developing a microlanguage for non-perl programmers
in thread Developing a microlanguage for non-perl programmers

Good point. I might temper that slightly: a little
language would be fine if its scope and purpose is
tightly contained (but I'm not sure if yours fits the
bill). Here's my example.

We were doing some heavy-duty configuration management,
and had a custom tool to upgrade our data. We found
that we could not simply migrate our database into the
new database system because the new version also had
seemingly arbitrary data schema changes. The changes
were vast enough that schema updaters had to be written
per table, and some were complex. It was time for an
interpreted language that also severely restricted the
writers to only manipulating the data at hand. So we
wrote a LISP interpreter with functions specific to
the data types we were manipulating.

I can guarantee that this little language will never
go beyond its parent application. It's not generally
useful for anything else. Besides, few if any people
here know or use LISP.

On the other hand, it's a fun little language which
performs rather complex data munging with no complaints.
It's highly attuned to its tiny little ecological
niche.

Rob

  • Comment on Re: Re: Developing a microlanguage for non-perl programmers