Re: proposed: use abstract syntax notation (asn06)

Dan Connolly wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-11-13 at 14:23 -0500, Sandro Hawke wrote:
> [...]
>   
>> The classes are named, but not the properties/roles.  Like in this part
>> of the grammar [1]:
>>
>>   HEAD     ::= LITFORM
>>   BODY     ::= CONDIT
>>   Implies  ::= HEAD ':-' BODY
>>   
>> we see a very clever hack, introducing a special kind of non-terminal
>> (distinguished by being all upper case and implemented in the DTD as XML
>> Entities instead of grammar productions).  This is a common pattern in
>> modeling, where class names and role names are the same ("my mother is
>> an instance of class 'Mother', my friend is an instance of class
>> 'Friend'), but I think it quickly turns into an anti-pattern and muddies
>> the waters.
>>
>> I find the formulation
>>
>>     Implies
>>        head: LitForm
>>        body: Condit
>>
>> makes it much more clear that "head" and "body" name the roles that the
>> parts of the implication statement play.
>>     
>
> Ah; that's a good illustration.
>   
> Like Michael (13 Nov 2006 20:21:21 +0100) I'm happy to use turtle,
> I'm beginning to see your point.
>   

I'm not sure that's a solution (turtle).  The main point (which I think 
you were "beginning to see") is that using a notation like asn06 you get 
to name the roles each peice of syntax plays.  However, unlike RDF asn06 
is a syntax specification, it has specific rules about how "slots" and 
their "types" (for lack of better terms) are interpreted in a syntax.  I 
think the semantics of RDF would confuse this.

Looking at bnf2turtle it seems to me that would not provide the kind of 
value we're talking about here.  There are a few complex issues in going 
from this quasi-frame-notation of asn06 to a grammar, and as a result 
there need to be some restrictions on some of the normal constructs you 
would find in e.g. UML or RDFS (like subclass).

Still, I'd be very surprised if there wasn't already something out there 
that provided this kind of functionality and would be happy to hear of it.

-Chris


-- 
Dr. Christopher A. Welty                    IBM Watson Research Center
+1.914.784.7055                             19 Skyline Dr.
cawelty@frontiernet.net                     Hawthorne, NY 10532
http://www.research.ibm.com/people/w/welty

Received on Monday, 13 November 2006 20:41:56 UTC