Charles Simonyi and his Intentional Software tried to solve this, publishing some interesting articles in the 1990es. However their technology was not broadly used and they were acquired by Microsoft.
The key ideas are called Intentional Programming and Language Workbenches.
The best accessible implementation of that is JetBrains’ MPS (it is free). It allows you to define a language and “projectional” editors together.
It is really fascinating but it suffers from a learning curve where there is no small step from what people use in their everyday common languages and IDEs to building domain-specific solutions with MPS, so adoption is low.
Markus Voelter has some highly recommendable publications and elaborate applications of MPS for domains specific languages, see http://voelter.de/
I am sure there is something great in that area but it has not found the right form and shape yet, so keep exploring.
The key ideas are called Intentional Programming and Language Workbenches.
The best accessible implementation of that is JetBrains’ MPS (it is free). It allows you to define a language and “projectional” editors together.
It is really fascinating but it suffers from a learning curve where there is no small step from what people use in their everyday common languages and IDEs to building domain-specific solutions with MPS, so adoption is low.
Markus Voelter has some highly recommendable publications and elaborate applications of MPS for domains specific languages, see http://voelter.de/
I am sure there is something great in that area but it has not found the right form and shape yet, so keep exploring.