u/bear-tree

▲ 6 r/ruby

SRP Simple, Readable, Parseable DSL for surveys and forms

My friend Claude and I wrote a DSL to define surveys and forms.  I created it as a side project based on the pain of working with Qualtrics, Dimensions, etc survey formats. Most existing formats are either proprietary/xml-based or non-existent (interactive form-builder style).  I thought “there must be a better way to define and communicate the structure of a survey”.  Ruby’s flexibility and blocks made it a natural choice for me to build upon. After a lot of prompts and tinkering I have a small, readable language that defines a survey with skips, based-on, etc.

Some benefits:
- Simple.  The logic and flow are easy for most anyone to read and understand.  
- Small.  The language definition can be described in a small markdown file and shared with an AI.
- Portable.  It’s just a text file.
- Git diffable.  It’s just a text file.
- Flexible.  Can render to different formats like html survey, html form, XForm for kobotoolbox, etc.

I have an information site and a playground if this seems interesting or you would like to learn more.

I have not open-sourced it (yet?) because I am still a single developer with big dreams of leveraging it into a possible small SAAS. I typically build things and then let my ideas die on the vine, so if you have any thoughts or inspiration, my DMs are open 😄

Cheers! and humble thanks to the Ruby community for providing such an amazing language that has fueled a large part of my career.

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u/bear-tree — 1 day ago