What is completely wrong about the way C++ does "objects?"
I've recently been digging hard-core into C++ after making such disparaging comments for years and have been rather surprised to see that it's not as terrible as I once thought -- It's actually quite good.
I agree however with your point about dangerous abstractions. DSLs when implemented with careful, thoughtful restraint are rather powerful. SQL being a really good example. There's nothing stopping anyone from writing their database queries by directly sifting through and filtering datums from the domain using the primitive functions and operations of their programming language of choice... but it's clear that SQL is much more powerful and lets us express such problems in a succinct way.
But just like programming languages, once introduced, a DSL is likely to be misunderstood and abused. The problem I believe lies not with the technique but with the users. A double-edged sword is a fine tool but will likely maim an inexperienced user. Which will probably lead them to writing DoubleEdgeSwordWrapperMachineGun classes and then someone else to write a DSL on top of that...
I've recently been digging hard-core into C++ after making such disparaging comments for years and have been rather surprised to see that it's not as terrible as I once thought -- It's actually quite good.
I agree however with your point about dangerous abstractions. DSLs when implemented with careful, thoughtful restraint are rather powerful. SQL being a really good example. There's nothing stopping anyone from writing their database queries by directly sifting through and filtering datums from the domain using the primitive functions and operations of their programming language of choice... but it's clear that SQL is much more powerful and lets us express such problems in a succinct way.
But just like programming languages, once introduced, a DSL is likely to be misunderstood and abused. The problem I believe lies not with the technique but with the users. A double-edged sword is a fine tool but will likely maim an inexperienced user. Which will probably lead them to writing DoubleEdgeSwordWrapperMachineGun classes and then someone else to write a DSL on top of that...