Domain-specific languages in perspective

Domain-specific languages (DSLs) are languages tailored to a specific application domain. They offer substantial gains in expressiveness and ease of use compared with general-purpose languages in their domain of application. Although the use of DSLs is by no means new, it is receiving increased attention in the context of model-driven engineering and development of parallel software for multicore processors. We discuss these trends from the perspective of the roles DSLs have traditionally played.