[Bug 1743] [FS] technical: 5.15 Function Declaration: a function can reference any function

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=1743





------- Additional Comments From jmdyck@ibiblio.org  2005-09-03 01:31 -------
(In reply to comment #8)
> I agree this can be done, and thank you for sketching a proposal.

(Well, I'd say it was more like "complete instructions" than a "sketch", but
anyway...)

> This seems like a lot of material

By my count, it's 4 more inference rules and 4 more normalization rules. That's
a lot? Or if you're thinking of the changes to existing rules, those are mostly
search-and-replace.

> to solve something which is really a processing model question.

I don't understand what you mean by "a processing model question", or why that
affects whether it should be formalized. (Are Normalization and SCP also
processing model questions?)

> We really need to add a processing phase, which is in essence
> what you suggest.

If you mean "processing phase" in the sense that each premise of 5/STA/rule_1
constitutes a processing phase, then yes, I'm suggesting adding one. (Or rather,
I'm saying you *need* to add one, to correctly express the static semantics of
VarDecls and FunctionDecls.)

If you mean "processing phase" in the sense of 3.2.1's "sub-phases" of static
analysis, then no, I'm not suggesting adding another -- the divisions between
those "sub-phases" (other than Parsing) are bogus. (See Bug 1547.)

> Are you firmly against the non formal approach for this issue?

Currently, yes. The only argument in favour of a non-formal approach seems to be
that it would be less work, which doesn't strike me as compelling, or even true.
(I don't think "adding a sentence to the processing model" would be anywhere
near detailed enough for a normative specification of the static semantics.)

Received on Saturday, 3 September 2005 01:31:51 UTC