Oldest / First Domain specific language

Question

I've got an assignment in school, but I keep having problems with finding any information. We're currently programming and working with internal and external DSLs together with java. We are trying to make our own parser for External DSL, something like:

entity [ Room "bedroom"
         item "lamp",
         item "bed",
         item "sheets"
]

BUT. My assignment was to find the OLDEST or the FIRST domain specific language ever, so we could try to analyze it and reconstruct it. It doesn't have to be programming related. But it can be a language between humans even prehistoric. I just have to find some proof it was DOMAIN-SPECIFIC, that it was created to comunicate about something specific and thus it was easier to understand. I googled for hours but nothing. I don't know if there is anyone who is somthing like a language professional or studies languages.

Answer 1

Domain-specific languages have existed as long as there have been people. The first candidates would have been spoken - like the DSLs for ordering at Starbucks or Subway - but the first from which we have records will be the written ones. I wouldn't require a DSL to have a separate mechanical or computing interpreter. That's something relatively new, unnecessarily limits the search, and is not part of a standard definition of DSL. A DSL need not generate anything; it can be used simply for recording and communicating something. I also wouldn't require a DSL to be widely used: many computing DSLs today are for only small numbers of people, and limited to within a single company or project. I think I would rule out the most simple or direct representations like tally sticks: if anyone can understand it, even out of context, it probably doesn't form its own language.

• Knitting patterns are a clear DSL, and the first book containing them dates back to at least 1524 AD (not many books printed before that!).

• Even older is musical notation, with the earliest found dating back to 2000 BC.

• Astronomical records are truly ancient, with the earliest being bone sticks marked in ways that tracked the moon's phases, from possibly as long ago as 35,000 BC. A rather clear example of a moon phase DSL exists from around 32,000 BC:

Answer 2

I would propose the Jacquard loom, or at least the pattern of holes it processed.

The loom is a special purpose (mechanical) interpreter of cards containing weaving patterns. So one "writes" weaves on the cards by making holes in them (the hole pattern is the DSL), and the loom interprets the cards to "compile" a woven document.

From wikipedia:

"Multiple rows of holes were punched on each card, with one complete card corresponding to one row of the design"

It has all the properties of DSL:

• a special notation used and shared (actually, widely) by experts in a problem domain
• a notation that makes it significantly easier to express the problem/solution more easily than other available notations
• a precise interpretation/meaning independent of the person reading it
• an automated interpreter

I don't have any evidence, but I assume there were some directions written about configuring and operating it; if nothing else, the patent on the loom. That would be reference manual and a user guide :-}

This precedes even Babbage's mechanical engines.

Even older than that is Napiers Bones, a set of marked rods used to perform multiplication.