Well Specified Semantics for a Rule Engine

Dave --

At 09:09 AM 1/26/2006 +0000, you wrote on [jena-dev]:
>Until recently my hope was that the new RIF working group would develop
>a standardized rule language suitable for RDF with a well specified
>semantics. We would have then considered migrating Jena to support that
>core, though we would likely still need procedural extensions to cover
>our own use cases. That's now less likely given the actual focus of RIF
>but we haven't decided on a plan B yet.


For the well specified semantics Plan B, you may like to consider the 
approach in:

    Backchain Iteration: Towards a Practical Inference Method that is 
Simple Enough to be
    Proved Terminating, Sound and Complete. Journal of Automated Reasoning, 
11:1-22.

The paper describes a model-theoretic semantics for what an engine _should_ 
do, and an engine that is proved to do that.

The paper is hard to find on the web, but if this is of interest, I'll be 
glad to send you a scanned in .doc version.  Let me know.

The engine in the Internet Business Logic system is based on the one in the 
paper.

HTH.    Cheers,

                                        -- Adrian

PS:  www.w3.org/2004/12/rules-ws/paper/19 may also be of interest

PPS:  Apologies for cross-posting, but this topic really impacts a lot of 
future SW stuff



Internet Business Logic (R)
Executable open vocabulary English
Online at www.reengineeringllc.com
Shared use is free

Adrian Walker
Reengineering
PO Box 1412
Bristol
CT 06011-1412 USA

Phone: USA 860 583 9677
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Received on Thursday, 26 January 2006 15:15:28 UTC