Why not take an existing small language, which have good documentation and tooling? E.g. lua.
It can be integrated very fast and anyone can learn it in a few minutes.
> In the pub after work someone quips, “we’re back where we started four years ago, hard coding everything, except now in a much crappier language.”
For me it's not the same.
Four years ago - you hardcoding values in (probably) compiled language. So, you were need to recompile it each time the value changes.
Now - you writing (probably) in interpretet DSL. So, your compiled app can reload it at runtime.
> In the pub after work someone quips, “we’re back where we started four years ago, hard coding everything, except now in a much crappier language.”
For me it's not the same. Four years ago - you hardcoding values in (probably) compiled language. So, you were need to recompile it each time the value changes. Now - you writing (probably) in interpretet DSL. So, your compiled app can reload it at runtime.