Macro/Scripting language for non-developers with a simple GUI-based editor

Question

Hello,

We wish to provide people to be able to add some logic to their accounts(say, given a few arguments, how to compute a particular result). So, essentially, this would be tantamount to writing simple business rules with support for conditionals and expressions. However, the challenge is to provide them a simple online editor where they can create the logic (preferably) by completely visual means (drag/drop Expr-tree nodes maybe -- kinda like Y! pipes).

Does anybody know of a scripting/macro/domain-specific language that lets people do this? The challenge is the visual editor, since we don't wish to invest in developing the UI to do the editing. The basic requirements would be:
1. Embedded into another language, or run securely (no reboot -n or <JUNK-DANGEROUS-COMMAND> >> ~/.bashrc)
2. Easily accessible to users without coding background (no need of any advanced features)
3. Preferably have a simple GUI based editor to create the logic programs accessible to non-developers (kinda like spreadsheets)
4. Some ability to generate compile-time warnings (invalid code) would be good (Type safety?)
5. Ability to embed some data before execution which is available to the interpreter (Eg., name, birthday, amount)

Anybody tried doing something like this and got any ideas? I looked at Lua, Io, Python, Ruby and a host of others, but the challenge essentially is that I don't think non-programmers will be able to understand the code all that much. Something that could be added via "meta-programming" to say a Ruby would be good as well, if an editor could be easily developed!

Answer 1

I don't think you'll find anything that isn't too generic, especially regarding the GUI editor. There's no generic tools as far as I know that will be able to automatically interface with your program and be able to query data from it and interpret the script into commands in your software -- if there is I'd like to have a copy. Not being flippant, but you will have to do some (probably alot) of work to get this working. It will probably result in you writing a custom DSL.

Answer 2

As a matter fact, Microsoft is developing Oslo, which is right up your alley. Chris Sells has been writing a lot about it recently.

It is designed to be a way to author DSLs and also to visually author these models with a graphical tool called Quadrant. Sounds very very similar to what you are looking for.

Open source wise, Ruby I think can be close, as you can see if you look at _whytheluckystiff's Try Ruby or Hackety.

Answer 3

I would take a look at PowerShell. You could surface all the activities a user would like to script in a very readable way. There is some talk of using PowerShell to create a DSL on the PowerShell team blog and Bruce Payette, the technical lead, talks about this in his book Windows PowerShell in Action from Manning.

Answer 4

At the other end of the scale is to write something simple as a HyperText Application (HTA) -- assuming Windows of course -- along the lines of my Clive tool. The article on the blog doesn't mention the HTA version, but essentially I could enter VBScript-ish code into one textarea and interpret it on the spot, output going into another text area on the form.

With HTAs giving you all the form control of HTML, plus the DOM, you could come up with something interesting fairly quickly.