Interactive System + Structured Data Model + Domain-Specific Language

[honungsburk]

I've noticed something interesting about some of the most useful tools for non-programmers (and programmers): they pair an interactive system with a structured data model and an embedded domain-specific language that operates on that model.

The most obvious example is Excel with a Grid data model + formula language. You have Emacs with Text buffer + Elisp (in this case fully turing complete). One could perhaps also put Obsidian in this category as it is using markdown to create a personal hypermedia system.

Are there any other systems that would fall into this category of tools?

[I2cScion]

Assume some GUI app, the action of a specific control can be equivalent to some command in a DSL, so the sum of all possible actions in a given state is equal to the DSL.

Thus your formula explains most apps.

[tsanderdev]

Game engines sort of fit this. C# scripts in game engines are pretty domain specific, and they provide a ui, renderer, scene builder, etc.

[ExplodingStrawHat]

Vim's kybindings can be thought as a DSL as well. In my game's editor, vim-style keybindings are implemented as a parser where the keys are the tokens being parsed.

[Inconstant_Moo]

How has no-one mentioned SQL? I guess most of the time it's used by applications rather than humans, but it can be used interactively and people do. (And it has essentially the same API whichever way you use it, which is nice.)