Chapter 1. Learning to speak the language of the domain

Every morning on your way to the office, you pull your car up to your favorite coffee shop for a Grande Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte with whip. The barista always serves you exactly what you order. She can do this because you placed your order using precise language that she understands. You don’t have to explain the meaning of every term that you utter, though to others what you say might be incomprehensible. In this chapter, you’ll look at how to express a problem in the vocabulary of a particular domain and subsequently model it in the solution domain. The implementation model of this concept is the essence of what is called a domain-specific language (DSL). If you had a software implementation of the coffee shop example where a user could place an order in the language that they use every day, you would have a DSL right there.

1.1. The problem domain and the solution domain

1.2. Domain modeling: establishing a common vocabulary

1.3. Introducing DSLs

1.4. Execution model of a DSL

1.5. Classifying DSLs

1.6. When do you need a DSL?

1.7. DSLs and abstraction design

1.8. Summary

1.9. References