[Bug 1804] [FS] editorial: E.1.4.2 Erases

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=1804





------- Comment #17 from simeon@us.ibm.com  2006-04-25 00:01 -------
Michael,

Again, trying to find some common ground on this thread. Here are a few
additional thoughts.

(a) I want to confirm that indeed the Formal Semantics specification has been
written with the intent that non-terminals do not participate in the 'syntactic
object' they described.

(b) We do not have any concrete evidence that the current interpretation is
broken.

(c) I believe I understand your concern that some inference rules may be
triggered by being matched with a syntactic object that may not be relevant for
that rule. That said, I am not quite as concerned as you may be. The formal
semantics processes essentially 3 kinds of objects: values, types, and
expressions. I believe judgments are never such that they may bind two of those
kinds of objects for the same pattern so there should not be any case where an
object of one kind can be matched instead of an item of another kind (e.g.,
expression 1,2,3 will never be confused with value 1,2,3). Then for one such
kind of objects, let say values, the syntactic objects are independant of the
grammar production and the grammar can be seen as a constraint on which subset
of the objects can be matched. Obviously this reasoning does not represent a
formal proof, just the basic intuition.

(d) Whatever interpretation is choosen, addressing fully your concern will
require some significant work (a formal proof and a detailed review in either
case).

Now let me try and propose a plan to move us forward, in two steps:

First step:

  * For now and considering (a) and (b) above I would suggest to keep the
intended interpretation since this is the intended semantics and the spec is
based on that interpretation.

  * We should clarify the intended semantics by explaining the role/semantics
of non-terminals in the corresponding notation section. We can then close bugs
1804 and 1803.

Second step, assuming someone has the interest and resources to do this:

  * Review the current interpretation to see if anything is broken with the
current interpretation, and if so, post a technical item about this on
bugzilla.

Let me know how that sounds,
- Jerome

Received on Tuesday, 25 April 2006 00:02:03 UTC