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Domain-specific languages

A domain-specific language is one that has been created specifically to solve problems in a particular domain and is not intended to be able to solve problems outside it.

In contrast, general-purpose languages are created to solve problems in many domains.

The domain can be a business area. Some examples of business area domain-specific languages include:

  • a domain-specific language for life insurance policies developed internally in large insurance enterprise
  • a domain-specific language for combat simulation
  • a domain-specific language for salary calculation
  • a domain-specific language for billing

A domain-specific language is somewhere between a tiny programming language and a scripting language, and is often used in a way analogous to a programming library.

The boundaries between these concepts are quite blurry, much like the boundary between scripting languages and general-purpose languages.