Domain specific languages: another silver bullet?

Every few years the computing industry sees the emergence of another "silver bullet". Our "trade" press follows the siren call, vendors become optimistic (at least the marketing departments), managers and developers think that all will be solved, and the customer is skeptical as usual. Is our industry fated to go through hype cycles, and what is the underlying reality? This panel will explore this by looking at what may be a current "silver bullet" - Domain Specific Languages (DSLs). DSLs have become a focus of current interest with the increasing popularity of model driven development and dynamically typed languages. By allowing software engineers to focus on a specific domain it can be argued that DSLs bridge the gap between the business and implementation. Thus allowing us to produce better systems. Are DSLs really a "silver bullet", and what do we mean when we say that. The panel will take the form of a non-traditional debate (modeled on a public radio talk show "Left, Right, and Centre"). We have three practitioners with differing experiences using DSLs taking three differing positions: 'for', 'against', and somewhere in the 'centre'. Unlike the radio show there will also be audience participation.