Alternative DSL

[MateuszKubuszok]

Some people feel that the current DSL is "heavy" and that alternative libraries are "leaner" and more "lightweight" (even though in practice they are doing the same thing. From what I understand it's down to API:

foo.into[Bar]
  .withFieldComputed(_.baz, foo => ...)
  .transform

takes more keystrokes than

foo.into[Bar](
  computed(_.baz, foo => ...)
)

It might have a change of running faster too, since there is no runtime overhead of building a Vector[Any] to store all runtime values.

But internal macros are not tied to that implementation, so implementing an alternative DSL, let's say io.scalaland.chimney.lean._ in another, optional module (to avoid confusing current users) is entirely possible.

It would require writing new DSL, parsing it with macros, and using the parsed information to create the TransformerConfirmation that could be passed into macros. Everything else could stay the same.

[nemoo]

I believe losing the discoverability of being able to press "." in the IDE and having the option of ".withFieldComputed" presented would be a step backwards, not forwards.

[MateuszKubuszok]

Alternative DSL can be put under a common namespace (e.g. common object for overrides, see Ducktape), for people who don't want the runtime overhead of chained DSL. It will be an alternative but it would not make old DSL dissapear.

It's academic though as I'm no longer adding anything to Chimney, so such contribution would have to come from the community.