Re: XML Syntax

On 13 Apr 2009, at 21:35, Bijan Parsia wrote:

> On 13 Apr 2009, at 21:03, Seaborne, Andy wrote:
> [snip]
>> I am expecting it to capture the AST for a query and it would be  
>> useful to more formally define the abstract syntax.
>
> There has a been a lot of positive feedback from OWL implementors on  
> the use of UML to define the abstract syntax...I'm not a huge fan,  
> myself.

Sorry. I'm a huge fan of the precise definition of the language in an  
abstract form. *UML*, itself, gives me some heebie jeebies, but the  
subset we're using seems absolutely fine.

I prefer XML for this sort of conceptual modeling (or something close  
to XML) because it gets you closer to multilanguage APIs. There can be  
problems due to limitations and infelicities in the XML abstract model  
(e.g., XML Schema and WSDL define a distinct "component model" to  
define their languages because the XML infoset doesn't deal with  
things like inclusion...HTML5 style definition seem to handle this  
with api extensions; so, for example; one could define an OWL ontology  
with imports by adding a method to an Ontology DOM element that gave  
access to the directly imported Ontology DOM elements).

It's often hard to tell what's "mere" fashion and what's sense. These  
things seem useful:
	1) the description of the language suggests an API for manipulating  
that language;
	2) the description of the language abstracts away from many lexical  
details;
	3) the description is concrete enough to be "directly" implemented

1 gives you 3 in a way that respects 2.

Anyway, I don't think there's an intention to rewrite the main SPARQL  
spec (is there?) so this is more on the supplementary side of things.

Cheers,
Bijan.

Received on Monday, 13 April 2009 20:55:35 UTC