Just published architecture of our DSL [Feedback wanted]

Hi everyone,

as part of our contribution guide we have just published the architecture of our DSL:

https://docs.openvalidation.io/contribution/developer-guide/architecture

It would be awesome if some of you guys could give us a second opinion on the matter. Especially since most of you are experienced in the field of language design your feedback would be highly valuable to us.

For context:
openVALIDATION is a natural language DSL for non-programmers to create validation rules.

You define your rules in a natural language, such as German or English, and the result is Java, JavaScript, C#, Python, Rust code.

The unique characteristic of this DSL is a flexible grammar, which allows a very high degree of semantics.

We are looking forward to receiving your feedback.

If you want to see the DSL in Action:
https://playground.openvalidation.io/

Kind regards
Ilja

1 Like

My immediate feedback, even though you might already have that on your agenda for “later” is to work on your error messages:
image

I imagine that you can gain quite a lot if your error messages would be on a similar semantic level than your natural language DSL. I’m not saying you cannot be successful without great error messages. But I think there is a lot of potential to really create a “Wow” factor with better error messages.
My go-to example for great error messages in a compiled language is Elm: https://elm-lang.org/news/compiler-errors-for-humans
https://elm-lang.org/news/the-syntax-cliff

Best,
Robert

2 Likes

Hi Robert,

thanks for the quick feedback. You’re right the exception handling is actually a big open issue. Your links are really great, exactly what we were hoping for as feedback.

best regards
Ilja