Iterative Evaluation of Domain-Specific Languages

As software moves to the daily routines and responsibilities of people, there is a need for developing tools and languages rapidly. Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) are claimed to contribute to this productivity increase, while reducing the required maintenance and programming expertise. DSLs are designed to bridge the gap between the problem domain (essential concepts, domain knowledge, techniques, and paradigms) and the solution domain (technical space, middleware, platforms and programming languages). The sooner we fill in this gap, the sooner we shall increase users productivity. However intuitive this idea may be, we need to have means to assert the quality and success of the developed languages. The alternative is to accept the risk of deriving inappropriate products that bring more harm by decreasing productivity or even increasing maintenance costs.