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1.8 KiB
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# DSL reference: a note on the complexity of Miller's expression language
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One of Miller's strengths is its brevity: it's much quicker -- and less error-prone -- to type `mlr stats1 -a sum -f x,y -g a,b` than having to track summation variables as in `awk`, or using Miller's out-of-stream variables. And the more language features Miller's put-DSL has (for-loops, if-statements, nested control structures, user-defined functions, etc.) then the *less* powerful it begins to seem: because of the other programming-language features it *doesn't* have (classes, exceptions, and so on).
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When I was originally prototyping Miller in 2015, the decision I had was whether to hand-code in a low-level language like C or Rust or Go, with my own hand-rolled DSL, or whether to use a higher-level language (like Python or Lua or Nim) and let the `put` statements be handled by the implementation language's own `eval`: the implementation language would take the place of a DSL. Multiple performance experiments showed me I could get better throughput using the former, by a wide margin. So Miller is Go under the hood with a hand-rolled DSL.
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I do want to keep focusing on what Miller is good at -- concise notation, low latency, and high throughput -- and not add too much in terms of high-level-language features to the DSL. That said, some sort of customizability is a basic thing to want. As of 4.1.0 we have recursive for/while/if structures on about the same complexity level as `awk`; as of 5.0.0 we have user-defined functions and map-valued variables, again on about the same complexity level as `awk` along with optional type-declaration syntax; as of Miller 6 we have full support for arrays. While I'm excited by these powerful language features, I hope to keep new features focused on Miller's sweet spot which is speed plus simplicity.
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