Re: What is added by functional syntax?

Jim,

just to frame the discussion more precisely: afaik there are no plans 
for publishing the M'ter syntax as a recommendation. There might be a WG 
Note for the M'ter syntax, but only a note. So let us not count that one in.

I _personally_ view the XML syntax as some sort of an exchange syntax 
and not a syntax for defining our spec (others may not agree with me on 
that). Ie, it does not have the same role and significance (again: for 
me) than the functional syntax and the diagrams.

Finally, to the original question of Alan: personally, I would find it 
*very* difficult to understand the document with the diagrams alone 
(although, I must admit, I am often s...d up by the functional syntax, 
too:-(.

Ivan


Jim Hendler wrote:
> 
> so let me ask Alan's question a little differently -- coming out of this 
> WG will be the functional syntax, the Manchester syntax, and the 
> metamodel (not to mention the XML syntax) -- can we justify all of 
> these, and if so, should we not more include discussion of  the 
> differences and issues in the documents -- personally, I don't care 
> which we use, but having many without clear justification is likely to 
> create confusion -- and I think more confusion is certain to hurt OWL 
> adoption (having 3 subsets was used by many people as an excuse to avoid 
> moving to OWL, now we have multiple profiles and multiple syntaxes -- so 
> we should be as clear as possible as to the differences and uses)
>  -JH
> 
> 
> On Aug 12, 2008, at 5:33 PM, Boris Motik wrote:
> 
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I wouldn't say that all people don't like the functional syntax; 
>> however, let's not argue about this point.
>>
>> One of the reasons why we have the functional syntax is that it 
>> provides us with a way to define tables in the RDF Mapping and the
>> Semantics. You can't really put diagrams in these tables (or, better 
>> said, one could do that, but I'm not going to do that :-). The
>> functional-style syntax lends itself well for such purposes because it 
>> is reasonable concise while being at least to some degree
>> human-readable.
>>
>> Thus, the functional-style syntax adds only some pragmatics to the 
>> spec. It does not add anything to the language from the
>> definition/structural point of view.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>>     Boris
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: public-owl-wg-request@w3.org 
>>> [mailto:public-owl-wg-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Alan Ruttenberg
>>> Sent: 13 August 2008 04:13
>>> To: OWL 1.1
>>> Subject: What is added by functional syntax?
>>>
>>>
>>> Hypothetically, if we had only had the object/metamodel, and
>>> documented the global restrictions on axioms in terms of the
>>> metamodel, what  would we lose (other than a syntax that not many are
>>> likely to use).
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>>
>>> -Alan
>>>
>>
>>
>>
> 
> "If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would 
> it?." - Albert Einstein
> 
> Prof James Hendler                http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~hendler
> Tetherless World Constellation Chair
> Computer Science Dept
> Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY 12180
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

-- 

Ivan Herman, W3C Semantic Web Activity Lead
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