- From: Bijan Parsia <bparsia@isr.umd.edu>
- Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2005 13:02:36 -0500
- To: jeff@inf.ed.ac.uk
- Cc: public-sws-ig@w3.org, Harry Halpin <hhalpin@ibiblio.org>
As much as I hate to participate... On Nov 25, 2005, at 12:53 PM, jeff@inf.ed.ac.uk wrote: > Quoting Harry Halpin <hhalpin@ibiblio.org>: [snip] >> And, as it must be pointed out again and again, XML does not provide a >> formal semantics. It's a serialization format like ASCII - you don't >> "reason" or "prove" things with just ASCII, do you? Think of XML as a >> representation format for data, and think of the SemWeb as a >> representation format with a formal semantics for *what the data >> refers >> to* . > > I am familiar with that point and don't find it convincing. > XML is not just like ASCII, for one thing; ASCII is at a lower > level. While it's true that XML lacks a formal semantics, [snip] But it isn't true: http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/CR-xquery-semantics-20051103/ #sec_preliminaries """Rigor is achieved by the use of formal notations to represent [XPath/XQuery] objects such as expressions, XML values, and XML Schema types, and by the systematic definition of the relationships between those objects to reflect the meaning of the language. In particular, the dynamic semantics relates [XPath/XQuery] expressions to the XML value to which they evaluate, and the static semantics relates [XPath/XQuery] expressions to the XML Schema type that is inferred for that expression. The Formal Semantics uses several kinds of formal notations to define the relationships between [XPath/XQuery] expressions, XML values, and XML Schema types."""" Cheers, Bijan.
Received on Friday, 25 November 2005 18:02:44 UTC