Re: how to observe RIF BLD consumer conformance?

Dan Connolly wrote:
> On Mon, 2010-03-01 at 12:01 -0500, Chris Welty wrote:
>> Dan,
>>
>> We struggled with this point based on RIF's status as an interchange format, not a rule language per se.  Thus the conformance refers to the ability to translate in a way that does not change the semantics, which includes entailments.
>>
>> It is not, as you say, directly observable in a positive way, however it is negatively observable
>>  through sets of tests, ie you can test if it did not happen. 
> 
> I don't see how you could test that it did not happen either.
> 
> Do any of the existing RIF test cases show how it can be done?

Where I'm assuming the "it" here refers to the property of being conformant.

In general, a RIF processor takes statements in RIF syntax and translates them into some existing rule language. This is described in each of the documents. If you translate a positive test case and its conclusion into the target rule language, the conclusion should hold.  If you translate a negative test case into the rule language then the conclusion should not hold.

-Chris

> 
>> -Chris
>>
>>
>> Dan Connolly wrote:
>>> I see:
>>>
>>> "A RIF processor is a conformant BLDΤ,Ε consumer iff it implements a
>>> semantics-preserving mapping, μ, from the set of all BLDΤ,Ε formulas to
>>> the language L of the processor (μ does not need to be an "onto"
>>> mapping)."
>>>  -- http://www.w3.org/TR/rif-bld/#Conformance_Clauses
>>>
>>> I don't see how this property is observable/testable; i.e. why
>>> this product class is defined at all.
>>>
>>> A conformant RIF-BLD consumer isn't required to compute entailment?
>>>
>>> This much is observable: "A conformant RIF-BLD consumer must reject all
>>> inputs that do not match the syntax of BLD." But that's just syntax
>>> checking.
>>>
>>> editorial: why "conformant" rather than "conforming"?
>>>
>>>
> 
> 

-- 
Dr. Christopher A. Welty                    IBM Watson Research Center
+1.914.784.7055                             19 Skyline Dr.
cawelty@gmail.com                           Hawthorne, NY 10532
http://www.research.ibm.com/people/w/welty

Received on Friday, 16 April 2010 14:03:37 UTC