Re: RIF vs Rule Language

On Dec 9, 2005, at 8:18 AM, Hassan Aït-Kaci wrote:
> Jim Hendler wrote:
>
>> well, that's true - but let's not forget there are a number of 
>> different kinds of semantics - I don't know of any programming 
>> language in major use that has anything other than operational 
>> semantics, and they seem to work pretty good (at least this email 
>> seems to be getting to you through a whole bunch of computers and 
>> routers and programs, and I suspect few if any have a model theory) 
>> --
>
> My point precisely.
>
>>   this is not to advocate not doing a formal semantics, but just to 
>> remind people that an option is to do basically an operational 
>> semantics
>
> But who said that an operational semantics may not be _formal_ ?
[snip]

There a CR spec describing a formal operational semantics for XQuery:
	http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/CR-xquery-semantics-20051103/

> Formal
> semantics of computational systems is, by far, not equivalent to a 
> _model_
> semantics.
[snip]

I don't know what you mean. Programming language theorists use 
denotational semantics as well, and they have advantages and 
disadvantages over (big step or little step) operational semantics.

Cheers,
Bijan.