Re: [Impr] Structural Specification and Functional-Style Syntax

I agree with Peter on this, especially if we are publishing this as more 
than just an editor's draft soon. The UML diagrams represent neither a 
MOF metamodel nor UML profile, and are not related to the current OMG 
ODM standard, as Evan alluded in his email.  We can point to open 
source, commercial, and research implementations of various aspects of 
the ODM, and would like to assist in the migration effort to help ease 
the burden on that community.

Having a revised abstract syntax, as Peter suggests, would be a much 
cleaner approach.  I would be happy to work with whoever is developing 
the abstract syntax on the related metamodel, and that work could inform 
the syntax development, as we did with Common Logic.  There are other 
folks, Peter Haase at FZI for example, who are also interested in 
contributing to the metamodel, which could be done in conjunction with 
the OMG Ontology PSIG.  It would also be useful to have more consensus 
on the RDF mapping, which, even if we choose to uncouple the OWL 
metamodel from the currently related RDF metamodel in ODM, would be 
required on our side to create a synchronized ODM modification.

Thanks,

Elisa


Peter F. Patel-Schneider wrote:

>From: Bijan Parsia <bparsia@cs.man.ac.uk>
>Subject: [Impr] Structural Specification and Functional-Style Syntax
>Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2007 16:49:45 +0100
>
>  
>
>>[I'm confining my comments to document issues, mostly]
>>
>>1) The first issue I have is that I don't understand the relation  
>>between this document, esp. its UML diagrams and the MOF-Based  
>>Metamodel document. In general, I'm not exactly sure what is gained  
>>overall from having both UML and a grammar. I believe that the UML  
>>represents some aspects not available in the grammar e.g., setness of  
>>some constructs:
>>
>>	dataOneOf := 'DataOneOf' '(' constant { constant } ')'
>>
>>doesn't express that the arguments form a set (that is, neither the  
>>unorderedness nor the lack of duplicates is captured by the  
>>production), yet the UML diagram does express that.
>>    
>>
>
>[...]
>
>I also have some issues with the UML diagrams.  Although the UML
>diagrams provide some information as to unordered arguments to
>constructors, the UML set tag does not show which sorts of mixed
>reorderings are allowed (e.g., allowing interspersed annotations and
>axioms in an ontology construct).  It seems to me that the role of the
>UML <<set>> tags could be better provided by an upgraded BNF grammar or
>a true abstract syntax, where the constructors took sets, or bags, or
>sequences of possible mixed subconstructs.  
>
>  
>
>>Cheers,
>>Bijan.
>>    
>>
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