RE: [BLD] PS specs amendments

Michael Kifer wrote:

> On Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:47:25 -0700
> "Hassan Ait-Kaci" <hak@ilog.com> wrote:
> 
> > Hello,
> >
> > In the light of the recent discussions regarding parsing the
> > RIF BLD into RIF XML, I would like to submit the following
> > to this WG to decide.
> >
> > I propose to change the current RIF BLD EBNF to:
> 
> Hassan,
> 
> #1 and #4 clash with the assumptions underlying PS&DTB.

Michael,

In several mails preceding the one in which I listed these 4 points,
I pointed out in some details some of the problems caused by not having
them.

Re: #1, allowing IRI's to appear unquoted (note that the <...>
notation poses no problem, while something it is something like:

   Prefix ( foo http:/bar.baz/fuz# )

does), for example, the ':' in the IRI is not the ':' of a CURIE. How
does a tokenizer know that ? All I am proposing is to change the
notation to:

   Prefix ( foo "http:/bar.baz/fuz#" )

so that the problem disappears.

Re: #4, in a recent email, I pointed out to Harold that the current
EBNF rules are inconsistent as they stand with his using CURIE's as
argument names (see
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rif-wg/2008Sep/0146.html).

So, unless I am missing something that you will explain to me, it is
not that "#4 clash with the assumptions underlying PS&DTB" but rather
that the assumptions underlying PS&DTB EBNF's are inconsistent!

> #3 is already in DTB, and I do not quite understand what you mean by #2.

#3 is indeed in the current spec, but not for named arguments Name's
that do not derive CURIE's although all the examples Harod uses employ
CURIE's for names of arguments.  Again, this is referring to recently
exchanged email on the RIF list (e.g.,
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-rif-wg/2008Sep/0154.html).

Perhaps I have missed something that will explain to me.  Please go ahead.

> Re #1, double quotes are reserved for the abridged syntax for strings in
> DTB. The abridged syntax for IRIs is <...>.

Look at the examples. BTW, it is not true that "the abridged syntax
for IRIs is <...>." The notation <foo> stands for "foo"^^rif:iri.  The
use of IRI's in the EBNF is only limited to Prefix and Base grammar
productions. As they appear there in the PS, there is not quoting
and it is explained to "Recall that an IRI has the form of an
internationalized resource identifier as defined by [RFC-3987]."

Again, what am I missing? Please explain.

> I do not understand what you are trying to achieve with #4.

What about: make the BLD examples consistent with the specs?

> As far as I can see, it is not easy to reconcile this with PS, and I do not
> understand why do you need this particular change.

>From what I can read and understand from the documents available today,
I beg to differ. But I concede that I may not have understsood everything.
Again, whatever I am missing, I would be happy to understand.

Thanks for explaining.

> 
>         --michael 

-hak

> 
> > 1. allow IRI's only within double quotes;
> >
> > 2. do not perform expansion of relative IRI's;
> >
> > 3. allow CURIE's everywhere as specified in the EBNF today
> >    as CONSTSHORT's;
> >
> > 4. allow Name's to derive CURIE's.
> >
> > With the above simple amendments, I am confident that I can
> > specify a workable tokenizer and Jacc grammar for a new
> > version of my BLD->XML tool.
> >
> > In order to speed things up a bit, it would be nice if the
> > above issues could be settled soon, so that I can proceed
> > with the new release.  I will be travelling starting
> > tomorrow and will spend the whole month of October working
> > in ILOG France.  I will not attend this F2F in NYC - not
> > even remotely (in fact I will be in planes most of its
> > duration). I will attend the F2F debrief planned for next
> > Tuesday's telecon.  Only after then will I have time to
> > start implementing the above amendments.
> >
> > Have a fun F2F in NY, NY (my kinda town!)...
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > -hak
> > --
> > Hassan Aït-Kaci  *  ILOG, Inc. - Product Division R&D
> > http://koala.ilog.fr/wiki/bin/view/Main/HassanAitKaci


-hak
--
Hassan Aït-Kaci  *  ILOG, Inc. - Product Division R&D
http://koala.ilog.fr/wiki/bin/view/Main/HassanAitKaci