Domain Specific Languages (DSL) are everywhere in web development, but these languages and their qualities often get taken for granted. HTML, Regex, CSS, and SQL are all DSLs which allow you to simply declare what functionality you want, instead of having to specify all the implementation details.Taking the DSL approach to full-stack web development not only unlocks new abstractions that make building more efficient for the developer, they also assist AI-coding assistants in creating more complex, maintainable code, by handing off the creation and management of large amounts of boilerplate code to the DSL.In this talk we will explore how we built Wasp around a DSL to create a unified approach to developing full-stack web-apps.

With all the web framework options available in popular programming languages today, why would anyone want to create a new Domain-Specific Language (DSL) for building full-stack web apps? In this talk, we will cover our rationale for deciding to do so, why DSLs are a compelling option, their pros and cons, and what it has enabled us to build for full-stack JavaScript devs so far. Additionally, we will cover some of the ups and downs of open source devtool development from our nearly three-year journey since Y Combinator (YC)