Domain-Specific Language

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What Does Domain-Specific Language Mean?

A domain-specific language (DSL) is a language used for a specific application or specific piece of software. A whole program cannot be written using a single DSL, but complete software may have programming in a number of domain-specific languages. The Unix community uses multiple DSLs in their systems and developers make their libraries available online as a free resource.

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Techopedia Explains Domain-Specific Language

A domain-specific language is a language with a specific purpose upon which some features of an application or program can be written. DSLs are used widely in the application programming domain. Common examples are HTML for Web pages’ specific domains and CSS, which both are used commonly on a large scale. DSLs are in contrast to a general-purpose language (GPL), which can be applied on a number of various domains and does not have specialized features. DSLs can be further divided into the kind of application they can be used on, but are collectively known as domain-specific languages.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.