RE: [UCR] comment on reference to charter definition of "rule language"

 
Hi Peter, Thanks for the feedback.  My remarks are below.  (I apologize
if anyone gets duplicates of this message. For some reason an earlier
mailing did not appear to get through.)

Peter F. Patel-Schneider wrote:

>
> I am puzzled by the following section of
> http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wg/wiki/RIF_Use_Cases_and_Requirements
>
>         1.1 What is a Rule Interchange Format And Why Create One?
>
>         [...]
>
>         A RIF is not a rule language. A rule language, as we
understand that
>         term here, consists of the following elements: 1) a precise
syntax
>         and/or effective procedure for determining whether or not any
>         expression is a well-formed formula (wff) of the language,
and 2) a
>         derivation procedure, which is defined as a partial function
that takes
>         a set of wffs in the language, together with a set of zero or
more
>         queries (also wffs), and for each query either returns an
answer after
>         some finite time, or terminates without returning an answer.
>
>         (This definition is in line with the terms stated in the RIF
charter,
>         section 2.2.3, except that we here explicitly account for the
>         possibility that a bona-fide rule-engine can "go on forever"
in certain
>         cases.)
>
Actually the term "this definition" in the preceding line refers only
to the "derivation procedure" or rule-engine, not to the whole
paragraph you quoted.  Sorry for the ambiguity.

Anyway, I am of 2 minds myself with regard to the question of whether
or not the RIF is a rule language.  In fact in my "Operationally
Equivalent Translations" use case, I had listed the RIF's being
"executable" by some "virtual machine" as a requirement.

The idea of the RIF as a framework of concepts or tags is more in line
with the recent discussions on the public email list.
The bottom line:  we editors need to have more guidance from the WG as
to what we want to say the RIF is and is not.

Allen

Received on Tuesday, 7 February 2006 03:10:13 UTC