As a programmer, how often do you feel the need of creating your own laguage for your purposes?

While I was learning how to build compilers, my instructor always told me, "If you are a programmer, you will always find that none of the languages are appropriate and instead you'll be motivated to create your own personalized language...".

Do you as a programmer feel this?

Never once in 31 years on the job.

Doesn't mean I never have though. At one job I needed to create a proprietary scripting language.

Good programming is in big part creating a new, domain specific language. A well written Java method should read like sentences in a language that was specifically designed for solving the problem at hand.

Why would you create a new language when there are 1750 languages in the world!

Vyas Sanzgiri wrote:Why would you create a new language when there are 1750 languages in the world!

Probably none of them is as personalized as one might want it to be? My guess.

Do you as a programmer feel this?

Well, it depends on how you define a programming language. I am still amazed at how many configuration files became language like in my career. Clients keep asking for enhancements. And you keep adding features... Sooner or later, the tool gets a config file, because it is too complex to use a command line... the config file itselfs get complex... conditional constructs. looping constructs.... and you have something that is very similar to a programming language.

Henry

Aakash Goel wrote:
Do you as a programmer feel this?

I feel it as an artist and creative person. I don't think I ever feel it as someone trying to get work done.

I think I'd have to disagree with your instructor on this one, though I think the spirit of what he/she said is good: don't be satisfied with your tools. Always think about what their deficiencies might be--even in the language you're using. It will lead you to more creative solutions to problems. For some of us, that will actually result in a new programming language. But for most of us it means creating expressive APIs, using convention over configuration, automating grunt work that most people take for granted, etc.

One needs to be careful with being creative. In my view, in a quest to be creative, one should not start writing his/her own utility methods etc when there is a well proven API that does the same job. I have seen programmers reinventing the wheel. This can be dangerous and error prone. One needs to be astutute about where creativity should be applied.

arulk pillai wrote:One needs to be careful with being creative.

Agreed. Creativity can be good in thinking of new approaches and bad in doing things in a away that is so non-standard it is unmaintainable.

I've noticed creativity tends to be better at the higher level of solving problems more than the lower level of writing a simple function.

Henry Wong wrote:Well, it depends on how you define a programming language. I am still amazed at how many configuration files became language like in my career. Clients keep asking for enhancements. And you keep adding features... Sooner or later, the tool gets a config file, because it is too complex to use a command line... the config file itselfs get complex... conditional constructs. looping constructs.... and you have something that is very similar to a programming language.

+1. That's my experience as well, and it's led me to explore the usage of lexers for handling those ever more complex config files.