Re: [RIF][UCR] Suggestion for new Abstract UC

Dear All,

John Hall wrote:

>I'd like to propose a new category of use case: "Interchange of 
>Human-oriented Business Rules". A RIF is needed for interchange between 
>tools that support rules of this kind.
>
>An example of a human-oriented business rule is (from the EU-Rent case 
>study used in SBVR):
>
>    "A EU-Rent car must not be handed over to a driver who appears to be 
>intoxicated."
>  
>
In my humble opinion, there are two opposite ways to achieve a language 
for "Human-oriented Business Rules".

The first approach is to start with a natural language, say English, and 
to derive from specifications (like the example John gives) a rule in a 
formal language. This is the natural language processing approach. This 
first approach presents all promises and all difficulties of natural 
language processing. Its advantage is that its promises are gigantous. 
Its drawback is that its diffulties are gigantous.

The second approach is to start with a formal language,  and to
derive from specifications (like eg: forall x y not (hand-over-to(x, y) 
& intoxicated(x)) a rule in a so-called "controlled" natural language 
(eg the rule in English John mentions.). This present approach presents 
all promises and all difficulties of formal languages. Its advantage is 
that its promises can be achieved today. Its drawback is that it is more 
limited than natural language.

I believe that the W3C RIF WG should consider now the second approach 
and keep the first approach for a future agenda -- maybe inb a few 
decades or so. A controlled English  syntax for  RIF would perfectly 
fit  in the  second work phase of the  W3C RIF WG.

Regards,

Francois

PS: An example of contolled English is Attempto, cf.  
http://scholar.google.com/url?sa=U&q=http://arxiv.org/pdf/cmp-lg/9603003
http://scholar.google.com/url?sa=U&q=http://www.ifi.unizh.ch/ddis/staff/goehring/btw/files/BernsteinEtAl_WITS2004.pdf
http://scholar.google.com/url?sa=U&q=http://www.springerlink.com/index/U0RPJR0J2Q37J48W.pdfBy 

the way, Attempto supports modalities using FOL in  examples like that 
of John relying on a very promising technique.

Received on Thursday, 26 January 2006 14:43:49 UTC