The YADSL Rule

Looks like the Ruby world is a fire with new DSLs for BDD/TDD. There’s

… woulda, coulda … My word! So many choices. I o doubt there are more. It’s fitting that it’s Thanksgiving, what we have here is a cornicopia of framework!!! Uh… Okay, you’ll have to forgive me. I get carried away.

I suppose it all started with that RSpec. Those guys built an incredibly elaborate nomenclature to help us spell out our code’s behaviors in gruesome detail. But as wonderfully grandiose as it may be, there’s just one tiny little itty-bitty problem… I can’t remember it. Oh, sure, I could sit down and jam it into my already overloaded brain somewhere, but you know what. I ain’t gonna. I already have enough new stuff to learn and I’m not going to bother to learn another DSL when those I already know work just as well.

So therein lies the serious downside to any new DSL. They require more brain cells. We’re talking the old “learning yet another language” dilemma here. I was thinking about this today, and it strikes me as one of those cool rules we oft hear about. So I decided to ‘writ’ one for the occasion.

Do not create a DSL if a native solution would be as elegant.

In fact, a good DSL will likely need to be substantially more elegant in order to fully justify its existence.

I’m calling this the YADSL Rule, for “Yet Another Domain Specific Language”.

Now, a quick look around the world of modern programming (see [DZone](http://dzone.com)), just as quickly makes clear that the YADSL rule is in no short supply of violations. Indeed, I dare say, that most of programming today is not innovative, but masquerading around as such via YADSL.

Now I don’t want to seem too harsh. There is of course a certain level of refinement taking place in some areas. And that naturally has to play itself out. But it’s getting a little crazy. Besides test frameworks, web frameworks and Javscript development frameworks seem to have hit a New Cambrian Explosion. I don’t see how we’re supposed to keep up with it. I can only hope that my little rule might help to cool all this exuberance down a bit; so we can catch our breaths and take some time to consider the drenchal downpour of verbage that has befallen us.

Of course, the real problem may be that too many people want to make YANFT (Yet Another Name For Themselves).

I sware to you. I’m not one of them. But I will be introducing my own Ruby test framework soon.

No. I’m not kidding.

Don’t worry, there’s no new DSL to learn. And that’s what makes my framework so very special. I’ll keep you posted.