A few posts back I was bemoaning the end of the simplicity of the BASICs I used thirty years ago – then I could just write a few lines to visually solve an equation and so on.
That got me thinking about how to recreate that as domain specific language (DSL) – writing some other code that interprets the graphics primitives to put dots and lines on the screen. That pit seems quite simple. But, of course, to be able to plot a function you need to implement the maths code too – including some relatively complex stuff like SIN, COS, TAN etc.
And, presumably, you would also want loops to advance your parameters along a bit as well – pretty soon you would end up implementing a fairly substantial BASIC interpreter.
Still a project worth thinking about in my view – but it seems someone, not surprisingly, has already done this – treating BASIC as a DSL using Scala.
Related articles
- The argument for domain-specific languages (usdlc.wordpress.com)
- The true role of domain specific languages (frankmccabe.wordpress.com)
- Why I prefer Scheme to Haskell (slidetocode.com)
- Xtext ~ A Language Development Framework (clean-clouds.com)
cartesian product ... stuff about computing mostly 