- From: Obrst, Leo J. <lobrst@mitre.org>
- Date: Tue, 9 May 2006 10:19:21 -0400
- To: "Peter F. Patel-Schneider" <pfps@inf.unibz.it>
- Cc: <jos.deroo@agfa.com>, <public-rif-wg@w3.org>
-----Original Message----- From: public-rif-wg-request@w3.org [mailto:public-rif-wg-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Peter F. Patel-Schneider Sent: Monday, May 08, 2006 10:30 PM To: Obrst, Leo J. Cc: jos.deroo@agfa.com; public-rif-wg@w3.org Subject: Re: "Semantics" vs. "No Semantics" From: "Obrst, Leo J." <lobrst@mitre.org> Subject: RE: "Semantics" vs. "No Semantics" Date: Mon, 8 May 2006 18:21:13 -0400 > There are three ways to define the semantics, two formal, one informal: > 1) proof theory: axioms; this is typically harder than (2) ^^^ I'm not so sure of this > 2) model theory > 3) a natural language description describing the operational semantics. > > Of course a 4th way is some combination of these. > > What else is there? Well, there are various abstract machine semantics, including the ones for Prolog and PDP-11s, to pick two quite different examples. One can make operational semantics as formal as one wants, including using a very formal theory of computation such as Turing machines or the lambda or pi calculi and a very formal mapping from syntax into this target. Many modern programming languages have a formal semantics in this style. LEO: Oh, yes, sorry, you are quite right: formal machine semantics is a 5th. > Thanks, > Leo peter
Received on Tuesday, 9 May 2006 14:20:11 UTC