Re: AW: Peter's slides about the MOF metamodel

On Aug 6, 2008, at 12:35 PM, Bijan Parsia wrote:

> On 6 Aug 2008, at 11:23, Alan Ruttenberg wrote:
> [snip]
>> It is my impression that we are doing neither. My take is that we  
>> have a model related to, but not of, the syntax,
>
> No. It's a model of the syntax. Models abstract.

Not a consensus view.

>> as the order of elements in the expressions is not captured and in  
>> the functional syntax order matters.
>
> The order of elements in the expressions is not part of what should  
> be modeled. The part that is modeled is that e.g., a ClassAssertion  
> has a class expression part and an individual part. They way those  
> aspect of the model are *realized* in the functional syntax is by  
> order of arguments, but, of course, it needn't be *that* order, nor  
> need it have parenthesis, or lack a comma between the arguments, or  
> *have* a comma between the arguments.
>
> These are given by a *grammar*.

I'm sorry. I don't understand the distinction between a model of a  
syntax and a grammar. Nor do I think i necessarily want to. Seems to  
be splitting hairs.

-Alan


>> So to get to 1 we would pull the model out and make mapping  
>> explicit or to get to 2 we would add ordering to the model.
>
> I do not believe we need to do either of these things. I also  
> believe we are in a rathole prompted by a seemingly innocuous but  
> rather naive question (from Michael). Now we're off in some there's  
> A Big Deal mode.
>
> I personally believe that reasonable developers can make sense of  
> the spec. I also believe that we can do a reasonable job of  
> ensuring what is, after all, the key point: that the syntaxes  
> conform to the model (when viewed from the right level of  
> abstraction). We have an existence proof in the form of the OWL API.
>
> I do not believe it is necessary to produce scripts either.  
> Actually, I don't find a strong need to heavily document the  
> relationship between the various bits where it's quite obvious,  
> though I don't object to adding some text.
>
> Could someone point to actual problems? The order thing just isn't  
> one.
>
> Cheers,
> Bijan.

Received on Friday, 8 August 2008 11:36:47 UTC