Request for strongly typed functional style syntax

It would be better if the functional syntax were strongly typed.  This  
would have the following benefits:

o  The strongly typed functional syntax would directly correspond to  
the structural specification, which would make the mapping between the  
structural specification and RDF graphs easier to read. This is  
because with the strongly typed syntax the extra step of mapping the  
structural specification to the functional syntax and then to RDF  
graphs is trivial.

o Strongly typed functional style syntax is trivial to parse, but the  
current version of the functional style syntax is not.  The current  
version of the functional style syntax cannot be parsed in a single  
pass because declarations are not guaranteed to be at the start of the  
file.

o  Compact snippets of strongly typed functional style syntax can be  
used in emails, documents, and for debugging purposes in IDEs without  
the need to litter the axioms of interest with declaration axioms.   
This is due to the fact that the strongly typed functional style  
syntax is not ambiguous.  For example compare SubClassOf(A  
ObjectSomeValuesFrom(R C)) with SubClassOf(A SomeValuesFrom(R C)).  Is  
R an object property or data property? With the strongly typed syntax  
there is no ambiguity, but with the current syntax there is.

Best regards,

Matthew Horridge
Bio-Health Informatics Group
The University of Manchester

Received on Tuesday, 3 February 2009 07:07:51 UTC