Summary of extensibility/dialect breakout group

Transcribed slide summary of extensibility/dialect breakout group.
Dave

(1) Rule Components

  o Core:
    - variable declarations
    - antecedent
    - consequent
  o some dialects (e.g. ECA) might add further elements
  o other dialects just vary the content, e.g. production rules have
    actions in consequent
  o Christian's UML diagram example

(2) Dialects

  o Starter set: LP, PR, FOL
  o Discussion on FOL in scope
  o Discussion on LP purity, e.g. is real prolog really a sub-dialect
    of LP led to discussion on ordering ...

(3) Ordering discussion

  o By default syntactic ordering will not be preserved.
  o For dialects with order-dependent semantics then an ordering
    construct will be provided.
[Some discussion on ruleset v.s. within rule differences, dropped
  after further discussion]

(4) Syntax extensions

  o All RIF standard dialects should use a common RIF syntax, extending
    only where necessary.
  o Syntactic extension mechanism?
    - Substitution groups?
    - RDF
       Significant disagreement on whether RDF is an admissible
       mechanism ...

(5) Syntax mechanism issues

  o charter says "normative XML syntax"
  o Christian - this means XML Schema
    - disagreement
    - Dave comments on RDF as metadata already opens door to use of RDF
      in other situations within RIF
    - so this is an ISSUE
  Note: It is hard to decide this in isolation, specific extension
  requirements, degree of (syntactic) validation would need to be
  defined. Examine this issue with test cases and concrete
  proposals. Not in abstract.

(6) Extensions

  o common libraries to draw from
    e.g. mathematical operators not in core but should provide these so
    dialects reuse the same set
[we need a name, other than core, that designates the shared stuff that
    we provide for all dialects to use]

Received on Sunday, 5 November 2006 20:49:40 UTC