Domain Specific Languages

Writing your First Domain Specific Language Part 1 | Part 2 | Visual Studio Language Service
DSLs - A powerful Scala feature
Bootstrapping a simple compiler from nothing
Creaging a C# External DSL to Map a Dungeon
DSL Engineering: Designing, Implementing and Using Domain-Specific Languages - Markus Voelter
A PhD seminar on domain-specific programming languages: Elided and locally echoed here for my convenience
- Unit 1: Why domain-specific languages?
  - To make things pretty. We look at how DSLs improve functional reactive programming.
  - ELM: Concurrent FRP for Functional GUI
  - Flapjax: A Programming Language for Ajax Applications
  - To make things fast. We look at DSLs for high-performance computing in graphics.
  - Halide: A Language and Compiler for Optimizing Parallelism, Locality, and Recomputation in Image Processing Pipelines
  - To make things correct. We look at the specification and verification of software-defined networks.
  - NetKAT: semantic foundations for networks
  - Frenetic: A High-Level Language for OpenFlow Networks
  - Machine-Verified Network Controllers
  - Some combination of the above. We look at languages for scientific programming.
  - Terra: A Multi-Stage Language for High-Performance Computing
  - Julia talk: "Solving the Two-Language Problem"
  - Cython: C-Extensions for Python
  - Analyzing programs for interesting properties. We look at how Resource-Aware ML can give us bounds we never previously dreamed of.
  - Resource Aware ML
  - End-to-End Verification of Stack-Space Bounds for C Programs
- Unit 2: How to build domain-specific languages?
  - Embedding languages into other languages. Making languages gets easier and easier as we can just hijack the machinary from another language. We look at how to make EDSLs in Ruby, Scala, and Haskell.
  - Building Embedded Systems with Embedded DSLs
  - Contracts for Domain-Specific Languages in Ruby
  - Safely Composable Type-Specific Languages
  - Implementing standalone DSLs. A closer look at LLVM and other techniques.
  - LLVM chapter of open source book
  - LLVM Tutorial
  - Staging. We look at meta-programming techniques that can help with implementing DSLs.
  - A Gentle Introduction to Multi-stage Programming
  - Lightweight Modular Staging: A Pragmatic Approach to Runtime Code Generation and Compiled DSLs
  - Functional Pearl: A SQL to C Compiler in 500 Lines of Code
  - Adding types to existing languages. You don't even need to make a language to make a language! We look at typed scheme, gradual types, and languages that add more types to a language that already has types.
  - Gradual Typing for Functional Languages
  - What is Gradual Typing
  - Hack and HHVM Manual
- Unit 3: Language-based approaches to systems programming
  - What's hard about systems programming? An overview of what people do with systems programming, the kinds of mistakes they make, and techniques people have developed to prevent bugs in low-level code.
  - An Overview of the Saturn Project
  - Typing low-level languages. We look at typed assembly and Cyclone, early efforts to make low-level coding safe.
  - From System F to Typed Assembly Language.
  - Scalable Certification for Typed Assembly Language
  - Proving OS correctness, before and after memory safety. We compare the SeL4 and Verve OS verification projects.
  - seL4: formal verification of an OS kernel
  - Safe to the Last Instruction: Automated Verification of a Type-Safe Operating System
  - An Overview of the Singularity Project
  - The new systems languages. We look at Rust, an effort to clean up systems programming.
  - Evaluation of performance and productivity metrics of potential programming languages in the HPC environment
  - Ownership is Theft: Experiences Building an Embedded OS in Rust
  - Ownership Types for Safe Programming
  - Practical Affine Types
  - Typestate: A Programming Language Concept for Enhancing Software Reliability
- Unit 4: Language-based information flow
  - Languaged-based information flow. We introuduce the notion of information flow security. We look at the decentralized label-based approach with Jif and SIF and compare with systems-based approaches.
  - Language-Based Information Flow Security
  - A Decentralized Model for Information Flow Control
  - SIF: Enforcing Confidentiality and Integrity in Web Applications
  - A system-based approach in a high-level language. We take a close look at the LIO monad and Hails operating system and discuss 1) how it uses Haskell for guarantees and 2) how it combines language- and system-based approaches.
  - Hails: Protecting Data Privacy in Untrusted Web Applications
  - Building Secure Systems with LIO
  - Type-based security. We look at Fine and F* and how dependent types and proof-carrying code can give us security guarantees.
  - Enforcing Stateful Authorization and Information Flow Policies in Fine
  - Type-preserving compilation for end-to-end verification of security enforcement
  - Secure Distributed Programming with Value-Dependent Types
  - Changing the language semantics for information flow. We look at my work on policy-agnostic programming with Jeeves and Jacqueline.
  - Precise, Dynamic Information Flow for Database-Backed Applications * Type-Driven Repair for Information Flow Security
  - A Language for Automatically Enforcing Privacy Policies
- Unit 5: Languages for modelling biology
  - Executable biology and executable knowledge. An introduction to language-based approaches for modelling biological systems.
  - Executable Cell Biology
  - Verification and synthesis with boolean networks. We can apply program-level techniques to biological models once we represent them the same way!
  - Synthesis of Biological Models from Mutation Experiments
  - Algorithmic Program Synthesis: Introduction
  - Rule-based modeling. We look at the design of Kappa and the simulation of Kappa programs.
  - Rule-Based Modeling of Cellular Signalling
  - Scalable simulation of cellular signalling networks
  - Rule-Based Languages
  - Static analysis of rule-based models. Once we have rule-based models, we can analyze them using program analysis. We look at abstract interpretation analyses over Kappa.
  - Abstract Interpretation of Cellular Signalling Networks
  - Abstract Interpretation: Achievements and Perspectives
  - Abstract interpretation: a unified lattice model for static analysis of programs by construction or approximation of fixpoints
- We looked at a couple more topics upon student request.
  - Voting. We look at the domain of electronic voting and how languages work might help.
  - Civitas: Towards a Secure Voting System
  - The physical world. We look at a compiler for 3D machine knitting, and the language questions associated with that.
  - A Compiler for 3D Machine Knitting
  - Input language for Stitch Maps
  - POPL OBT talk abstract
  - Languages for 3D Industrial Knitting at Strange Loop

Tags: language dsl

Last modified 15 November 2025

Domain Specific Languages

A collection of reading and links on the implementation of DSLs.