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Domain-Specific Languages (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Fowler)) 1st Edition

by Martin Fowler (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 71 ratings
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When carefully selected and used, Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) may simplify complex code, promote effective communication with customers, improve productivity, and unclog development bottlenecks. In Domain-Specific Languages, noted software development expert Martin Fowler first provides the information software professionals need to decide if and when to utilize DSLs. Then, where DSLs prove suitable, Fowler presents effective techniques for building them, and guides software engineers in choosing the right approaches for their applications.

This book’s techniques may be utilized with most modern object-oriented languages; the author provides numerous examples in Java and C#, as well as selected examples in Ruby. Wherever possible, chapters are organized to be self-standing, and most reference topics are presented in a familiar patterns format.

Armed with this wide-ranging book, developers will have the knowledge they need to make important decisions about DSLs―and, where appropriate, gain the significant technical and business benefits they offer.

The topics covered include:

• How DSLs compare to frameworks and libraries, and when those alternatives are sufficient

• Using parsers and parser generators, and parsing external DSLs

• Understanding, comparing, and choosing DSL language constructs

• Determining whether to use code generation, and comparing code generation strategies

• Previewing new language workbench tools for creating DSLs

Previous page
  1. ISBN-10
    0321712943
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0321712943
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    Addison-Wesley Professional
  5. Publication date
    September 23, 2010
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    7.4 x 1.55 x 9.45 inches
  8. Print length
    640 pages
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Designed as a wide-ranging guide to Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) and how to approach building them, this book covers a variety of different techniques available for DSLs. The goal is to provide readers with enough information to make an informed choice about whether or not to use a DSL and what kinds of DSL techniques to employ. Part I is a 150-page narrative overview that gives you a broad understanding of general principles. The reference material in Parts II through VI provides the details and examples you will need to get started using the various techniques discussed. Both internal and external DSL topics are covered, in addition to alternative computational models and code generation. Although the general principles and patterns presented can be used with whatever programming language you happen to be using, most of the examples are in Java or C#.

About the Author

Martin Fowler is Chief Scientist at ThoughtWorks. He describes himself as “an author, speaker, consultant, and general loudmouth on software development. I concentrate on designing enterprise software―looking at what makes a good design and what practices are needed to come up with good design.” Fowler’s books include Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture; UML Distilled, Third Edition; and (with Kent Beck, John Brant, and William Opdyke) Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code. All are published by Addison-Wesley.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Addison-Wesley Professional; 1st edition (September 23, 2010)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 640 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0321712943
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0321712943
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.54 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.4 x 1.55 x 9.45 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 71 ratings

About the author

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Martin Fowler

Martin Fowler

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For all of my career I've been interested in the design and architecture of software systems, particularly those loosely classed as Enterprise Applications. I firmly believe that poor software design leads to software that is difficult to change in response to growing needs, and encourages buggy software that saps the productivity of computer users everywhere.

I'm always trying to find out what designs are effective, what approaches lead people into trouble, how we can organize our work to do better designs, and how to communicate what I've learned to more people. My books and website are all ways in which I can share what I learn and I'm glad I've found a way to make a living doing this.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
71 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

mobiusklien
5.0 out of 5 stars Linking implicit ideas that are in the back of our mind.
Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2011
Verified Purchase
I no longer write programs, I help people design systems, through sensible design and architecture, but I have never forgotten my assembler roots. The author has produced an important book, as significant as when he created the refactoring book and analysis patterns, and for the same reason.
Fowler took concepts that good professionals understand almost implicitly by working through these difficult ideas and places them in context that can be used as a communication tool. He has put a name and a face to a set of memes.
Fowlers critical examination of the importance of the semantic model and the way it needs to be constructed apart from syntax, the separation of the state machine model, and the illustrative programming ideas as exemplified by spreadsheets, provide PERSPECTIVE that is so sorely needed. He links these concepts together in a way that is vital for architects and programmers.
9 people found this helpful
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FingolfinTEK
4.0 out of 5 stars Still worthwhile, truly a classic
Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2021
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I can see why this one became an instant classic - true to his form, Fowler applied his analytical pattern-sense to dissect Domain Specific Languages and produced a two-part delicacy - the first part dealing with general DSL guidelines and best practices and the second being a pattern reference book.

Both the general advice and the patterns within are sound, practical and described Fowler's signature style - to the point, simple without being simplistic, whimsical and supported by copious amounts of code samples.

The main fault of the book is its age - prophetically, Fowler predicted the coming age of language workbenches but, unfortunately, did not manage to cover them in enough detail that would be useful today.
One person found this helpful
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David S. Platt
5.0 out of 5 stars Great explanation of DSL, and Kindle edition is excellent
Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2010
Verified Purchase
I need to respectfully disagree with the earlier reviewer who criticized the Kindle edition. I am finding the conversion job to be excellent, and the links to work quite well. Perhaps Amazon improved it after that bad review.

I'm finding links everywhere I need them. It's far better than the paper edition which doesn't have any hyperlinks (you have to manually flip paper, how 20th century). Compared to paper, the Kindle edition is easier to navigate, cost less, and was delivered instantly. I am reading it on my Kindle PC Reader, as I don't own an actualy Kindle device yet.

And it's not a bad computer book either
5 people found this helpful
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Benjamin Peinhardt
5.0 out of 5 stars Book was in excellent condition | Great deal
Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2022
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The book was in excellent condition, can barely tell it’s used.
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ryan
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent - I highly recommend
Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2012
Verified Purchase
Domain-Specific Languages was an excellent book. It was well written, well organized, engaging and informative. I'm not even finished with it, and I've already applied my learnings in 2 different projects. Additionally, Fowler is pretty funny writer, making the book even more interesting.

If you have any interest in Domain Specific Languages or Writing your own language, I highly recommend you pick this up.
One person found this helpful
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Holygrail
3.0 out of 5 stars Well written but not comprehensive
Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2011
Verified Purchase
As usual, Fowler delivers a very well structured book, easy to both read and use as reference material. He is a very able and pragmatic writer and that shows in this book.

However, I can't consider this book a good text because of the things it omits. This is a book about designing DSLs and this task is one of the things functional languages excel at, but Fowler establishes in the introduction that he is going to happily ignore all things related to functional programming and never looks back. Anyone interested in designing DSLs owes it to himself to research Haskell, Scala and F# as they are vastly superior to Java in this respect.

Fowler has been one of the best at writing about OO design and approaches this book in the same way, sadly he hasn't upgraded his knowledge to include other paradigms that in this case address the problem at hand better.
63 people found this helpful
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Nicholas Miller
4.0 out of 5 stars Kindle edition a no brainer buy
Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2011
Verified Purchase
The Kindle edition seems okay to me: hyperlinks work, there's a good table of contents, and the diagrams and code samples render fine. You cannot copy and paste code from the Kindle version - by design. Style is a occasionally self-conscious and discursive, you know - the regular grey-haired guru affectation. It's long, but not exactly terse or concise. But there are some rich veins of tremendously precious material in this book. It's accessible too. I am getting a lot of value from it without a comp sci background. A bargain.
5 people found this helpful
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Stephen
5.0 out of 5 stars Very nice!
Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2016
Verified Purchase
As an occasional user of lexx/yacc and a frequent developer of rules engines - this book filled in many gaps and answered many whys. My next rule engine will make use of a DSL utilizing many of the patterns described.
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Cliente de Amazon
3.0 out of 5 stars Excelente libro. Mal empaquetado
Reviewed in Mexico on November 29, 2018
Verified Purchase
El libro venía sin plástico ni nada que lo protegiera, lo que provocó los daños que se ven en la foto. No lo devuelvo porque eso no afecta el contenido, pero Amazon en esta ocasión me quedó mal.
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Cliente de Amazon
3.0 out of 5 stars Excelente libro. Mal empaquetado
Reviewed in Mexico on November 29, 2018
El libro venía sin plástico ni nada que lo protegiera, lo que provocó los daños que se ven en la foto. No lo devuelvo porque eso no afecta el contenido, pero Amazon en esta ocasión me quedó mal.
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Raja
1.0 out of 5 stars Method chaining internal DSL, and discussion on external DSLs
Reviewed in India on February 19, 2020
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This book has been mentioned in several programming talks. From such hype, wanted to know if it would be like 'GoF design patterns' book on DSL techniques; but it's not the case. One useful takeaway is 'Method-chaining' internal DSL. Rest of the book are mostly discussion about compilers.
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prof
2.0 out of 5 stars confuso
Reviewed in Italy on May 16, 2016
Verified Purchase
è un libro scritto male e che confonde chi si avvicina all'argomento. evidenzia mancanza di chiarezza e, per stessa ammissione dell'autore, è solo un suo personalissimo punto di vista. d'altronde o si scrivono libri o si fa esperienza per poi scriverli... l'autore non dovrebbe scrivere tanti libri in breve tempo su argomenti tanto diversi. presumo esistano libri migliori
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Karl-heinz Reng
1.0 out of 5 stars Voller Fehler
Reviewed in Germany on January 28, 2012
Verified Purchase
Mehr Sorgfalt bei der Erstellung dieses Buches hätte diesen beiden Autoren gut getan. Auf der Webseite des Autors gibt es seitenlange Errataliste. Eine komplete Seite im Buch ist sogar unbedruckt. Desweiteren gibt es keine Quellcodes zum Download. Laut Aussage des Autors wär dies nicht notwendig. Hätte dem Buch aber gut getan. Somit wären die beiden Autoren vermutlich selber auf Ihre teilweise unmöglichen Fehler gekommen.

Deswegen kann ich nur sagen. Webseite des Autors anschauen und selber entscheiden, ob man sich für dieses Geld zusätzliche Blätter mit Fehlerkorrekturen beilegen will.

Schade, da man von Martin Fowler eigentlich besseres gewohnt wäre. Vielleicht sollte man sich manchmal mehr Zeit lassen. Und wenn man es eben nicht schafft Bücher zu schreiben und gleichzeitig Kunden zu beraten, dann lieber bleiben lassen. Das auch die Koautorin dies nicht bemerkt hat, legt die Vermutung nahe, dass Sie hier auch überfordert war. Fowler wird schon gewußt haben, warum es eben nicht alleine geschrieben hat. Jetzt ist es voller Fehler.

Chance vertan, wäre ein gutes Buch geworden. Vielleicht noch ein paar Auflagen abwarten. Buch ist wohl noch im Beta Stadium, der Release Candidate kommt noch....
22 people found this helpful
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chumplord
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book on an interesting area of software design
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 11, 2010
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This is an excellent book on an area of software design that is often overlooked. It's written in Fowler's usual clear, concise, and accessible style and follows the same format as the other books in the range (Patterns of Enterprise Architecture and Enterprise Integration Patterns): essays on DSLs, with examples and best practices followed by a wide-ranging collecion of patterns on the subject. The book covers everything from how to design fluent interfaces through to creating and passing external DSLs. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in software design, even if you're not familiar with concept of DSLs. They're an incredibly powerful weapon to have in your arsenal, and Fowler has done a great job of covering the subject.
4 people found this helpful
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