Re: What is added by functional syntax?

Ivan is right, I was confusing two issues - what syntaxes are needed  
in the "formal" documents and what is being included in the primer/ 
guide.  It is with respect to the latter that I was worried about  
confusion, but the guide doesn't include the metamodel stuff (I assume  
there is some reason why the guide should include the functional  
syntax - although I'm not sure what it is -- might simplify the guide  
to take it out, since the guide is aimed at users and the functional  
syntax at implementors, if I understood early mails in this group right)
  -JH


On Aug 13, 2008, at 8:07 AM, Ivan Herman wrote:

> 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
> Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
> PGP Key: http://www.ivan-herman.net/pgpkey.html
> FOAF: http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf.rdf

"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

Received on Wednesday, 13 August 2008 16:06:02 UTC