External or internal domain-specific languages (DSLs) or (fluent)
APIs? Whoever you are – a developer or a user of a DSL –
you usually have to choose side; you should not! What about
metamorphic DSLs that change their shape according to your
needs? Our 4-years journey of providing the "right" support
(in the domain of feature modeling), led us to develop an external
DSL, different shapes of an internal API, and maintain
all these languages. A key insight is that there is no one-size-fits-
all solution or no clear superiority of a solution compared
to another. On the contrary, we found that it does make sense
to continue the maintenance of an external and internal DSL.
Based on our experience and on an analysis of the DSL engineering
field, the vision that we foresee for the future of
software languages is their ability to be self-adaptable to the
most appropriate shape (including the corresponding integrated
development environment) according to a particular
usage or task. We call metamorphic DSL such a language,
able to change from one shape to another shape.
The talk has been presented at SPLASH conference in Portland (USA), Onward! Essays track.