RE: [PRD] Implemented Harold's comments, completing ACTION-809 (Was: Re: [RIF][PRD] ACTION-767: Review PRD)

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Hi Harold,

Thanx for the clarifications. Responses below.

"Boley, Harold" <Harold.Boley@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca> wrote on 14/05/2009 
23:45:17:
> 
>> - In the definition of a semantics structure [1], item 5, definition
>> of IFrame, you stroke through the example frmae with repeated 
>> attribute/value pairs, o[a->b a->b]. Why is that? 
> 
> Just because this same example comes back two sentences later.
> If you do want to have it twice, the example could also be 'introduced'
> better than by just using a colon:
> Bags (multi-sets) are used here because the order of the attribute/
> value pairs in a frame is immaterial and pairs may repeat as in o[a->b 
a->b].

Ok. Btw, the wording in PRD is copied verbatim from BLD => Maybe you 
should make the correction in BLD, and I will copy it in PRD (thus making 
sure that you are satisfied with the correction :-).

> - You marked the definition of action variable declaration [2] with 
> question marks in the margin: is that because the definition is 
> unclear, or is it something else? 
> 
> Because (?o New) used to be (?o New(?o))
> and (?value o[s->?value]) has a similarly looking variable duplication.

That is because the first occurrence declares the name of the action 
variable, and the second occurrence binds it. Need that be made clearer in 
the definition?

> BTW: Could New() be considered as a parameterless primitive or 
> built-in operator?

I removed the redundant (and, thus, confusing) brackets. It is meant as a 
parameterless construct, at this stage (an empty element, in the normative 
XML syntax).

It might be extended to use it for externally defined constructors, e.g. 
with the class name as a parameter. But that would be for a future OO 
extension.

> I added the following sentence, just after the itroduction 
> refraction, recency and priority: 
> [...]
> 
> Is that ok?
> 
> Yes, this is fine with me modulo some improvements to the English 
> such as using the plural "vary widely".

Done.

> Best (RIF-PRD) Practices: Should we advise users of existing 
> production rule systems to shy away from becoming dependent on 
specificity
> whenever they want to interoperate? Is there a methodology to transform 
> specificity to (a combination of) some of the basic conflict 
> resolution strategies that RIF-PRD specifies normatively?

In a parallel discussion with Gary and Adrian, I suggested adding "some 
kind of 'implementation note', stressing that the priority mechanism can 
be used to simulate all the syntactic static ordering of rules (which 
includes most specificity ordering, as well as the ordering by order of 
the rules in the ruleset, etc), by assigning priorities according to said 
ordering at translation time on the producer side."

Is this what you have in mind?
 
> I would support moving [section 8 - Presentation syntax] to an appendix, 
esp. since it is used 
> rather lightly in the document. and it is not normative. 
> 
> I now think it's better to move it right before section 7 XML 
> Syntax, so these two syntaxes are adjacent, in the natural 
> presentation-to-serialization order.

I do not think so: in PRD, the mapping is from the abstract syntax to the 
XML syntax, not from the presentation syntax to the XML syntax. That is 
what I meant, when I wrote that the PS was not used heavily in the 
document.

Cheers,

Christian

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