RE: proposed: use abstract syntax notation (asn06)

If we call it "metasyntax" instead of "abstract syntax", then we could
say that Sandro is developing a nice (semi-graphical) metasyntax, which
can, e.g., be conveniently copied and pasted into emails, and could be
the basis to generate equivalent metasyntaxes in other languages, incl.
in EBNF, RDFS, and UML.

For example, the asn06 metasyntax for positive conditions below could be
transformed back into the original EBNF metasyntax (DTD) linked from
[2]:
http://www.jdrew.org/rif/PositiveConditions.dtd

-- Harold


-----Original Message-----
From: public-rif-wg-request@w3.org [mailto:public-rif-wg-request@w3.org]
On Behalf Of Axel Polleres
Sent: Saturday, November 11, 2006 2:27 PM
To: Sandro Hawke
Cc: public-rif-wg@w3.org
Subject: Re: proposed: use abstract syntax notation (asn06)


Dear Sandro,

I 'd like to ask you to set this in a more concrete context than what 
you did so far, since I admittedly have again difficulties to grasp the 
idea behind the proposal

So, allow me the following questions:

- How does it relate to the current syntax?

- How do you disambiguate nested terms from flat terms in this syntax,
etc.?

- What is the advantage of using this notion above the two proposed
concrete and XML syntaxes proposed so far?

- Can you sketch some example rules or conditions using all three
   syntaxes maybe to demo this?

Thanks a lot & best regards,
axel (still caught in meetings in Athens ;-) )

Sandro Hawke wrote:
> Coming out of the meeting, it seemed like like we needed a more
detailed
> abstract syntax for talking about RIF without getting bogged down in
> serialization details.  (Also, for talking about serialization
details,
> without getting bogged down in fundamentals of the language.)
> 
> After not finding a good candidate, I put one together, which I call
> asn06.  It's a bit like BNF, and a bit like a class hierarchy
> declaration.  It's a way for writing down abstract syntaxes, like UML
> diagrams (being use for this in Common Logic and OWL 1.1), or the text
> diagrams on Harold's last slide at the meeting and Hassan's ACTION-87
> e-mail [1].
> 
> There's a description of asn06 on the wiki:
>    http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wg/wiki/asn06
> 
> Below is a first pass translation of the positive condition syntax [2]
> into asn06, which Harold and I just did.  I've put question marks
where
> role/property names should go.  (They are not in the EBNF.)  Names
need
> to be made up to go here.
> 
>      -- Sandro
> 
> [1] http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rif-wg/2006Oct/0083
> [2]
http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wg/wiki/A.1_Basis%3A_Positive_Conditions
> 
> ================================================================
> 
> Condit
>    
>    Litform
>      
>       Atom
>         rel: Identifer
>         ?: Term
> 
>       Equal
>          ?: Term
>          ?: Term
> 
>    Quantif
>        ?: Var+
>        ?: Condit
> 
>        Exists
> 
> 
>    And
>       ?: Condit*
> 
>    Or
>       ?: Condit*
> 
> Term
>   
>    Con, inherits Identifier
> 
>    Var, inherits Identifier
> 
>    Expr
>       ?: Identifier
>       ?: Term*
> 
> Identifier, inherits xsd:string
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 


-- 
Dr. Axel Polleres
email: axel@polleres.net  url: http://www.polleres.net/

Received on Saturday, 11 November 2006 21:12:15 UTC