the NEW BLD document

Gang,

I have finally finished writing most of the new BLD document by splitting
the framework off from the dialect.

The framework:
    http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wg/wiki/FLD

The dialect:
    http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wg/wiki/BLD


The semantics part of BLD is not complete yet (can do so within a couple of
days -- see below) and the XML part of both BLD and FLD are yet to be
written (Harold's job).

To appreciate the difference, I suggest to read the syntax part of
http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wg/wiki/BLD
and compare this with the old, rumbling.

Then you can read http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wg/wiki/FLD
which is more theoretical and general than before.

You can see that FLD is, in large part, a fulfillment of our charter's
promise to provide an extensibility framework for RIF (FLD only covers
logic dialects).  Sandro's issues are an orthogonal part, which should,
ideally, be addressed.  I'll appreciate any comments you might have.

If you look at the syntax part of BLD, you will see how simple it is
compared to the old thingie. The savings from splitting off the framework
are considerable.

The savings for the semantics part would be small. Currently you can look at
http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wg/wiki/BLD/Semantics
It is very short. It shows how the semantics of BLD is derived from
the semantics of RIF-FLD. There are two choices:

    - leave it as is and call it quits
    - copy the semantics from FLD:
      http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wg/wiki/BLD/Semantics
      and edit/simplify it slightly (as I said, it is not going to be much
      shorter than FLD's semantic section).

The advantage of the second option is that the reader will not need to
learn about the signatures, but it makes the document longer.  However,
people who read the semantics are going to have theoretical background
anyway, so it is unclear whether signatures will form a barrier to
them. Looking back, the biggest problem with the old document was
presentational: the framework and the dialect were mixed together, so
people could not understand why things are presented the way they were.
On top of this the syntax and semantics were given incrementally
(simple conditions->frames->rules), so there was a lot of repetitive stuff.
(In defense: this was for historic reasons and due to time/deadline pressures.)

So, basically, it is not clear to me if it is a good or a bad idea to
expand on the semantics of BLD. If I get some time this week, I'll expand
and then you can see if it is worth keeping.

Other stuff, like RDF, builtins, etc., should be copied over to the new version.

There are no new issues for the builtins, but it is not completely clear to
me whether they should be part of the framework or of BLD (probably BLD).

The same for RDF. I think Jos' stuff partly belongs to the framework and
partly is part of BLD. Some food for thought. In any case, something should
be said about RDF/OWL in the framework.



	--michael

Received on Tuesday, 5 February 2008 07:28:35 UTC