ATTENTION: Revisiting a resolution

RIFWG (Jos and DaveR, in particular),

In case you didn't scan through the entirety of my previous response to Michael, 
this is to alert you that I have decided to revisit the following resolution 
from F2F9 :

RESOLVED: make "specialization of FLD" sections (of BLD) appendices, leaving 
standalone sections in place, and making both standalone and specialization 
normative

In a nutshell, the reason for revisiting this resolution is that the 
relationship between BLD and FLD and the role of FLD itself in the future of RIF 
is still evolving somewhat, and Michael feels we, and indeed he himself, did not 
consider fully the impact of this resolution on that.  See his reasoning below.

Note that this does not mean we are repealing the resolution, only that it is 
now fair game for discussion.  I will add it to the agenda for tomorrow, however 
I will ensure we do not vote on it until next week.


Michael's reasoning:

    As I said, the new documents are the result of serious thinking about the
    grand schema of things. I think all logic (and later non-logic also)
    dialects should be presented as a specialization of FLD or of a similar
    framework. FLD drastically lowers the bar for the introduction of new
    dialects, and it is easy to envision that some dialects will be specified
    *only* as specializations of BLD. For instance, an LP dialects based of
    the well-founded semantics or stable models does not need direct
    specification because their audience is sufficiently sophisticated in
    various logical approaches.

    The BLD specialization from FLD is thus more important for the grand
    schema of things because it shows, by example, how other dialects can be
    defined. Delegating this to an appendix blurs this important message.
    This will also lead to great variance between the specifications of
    different dialects. Some will place the specialization part in the
    appendix, some will have only the specialization part, and some will not
    bother to include it at all, thereby breaking the RIF framework.




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

Received on Tuesday, 1 April 2008 00:37:13 UTC