Re: Dictionaries in the library

Please, everybody, read Rick's remarks carefully.  He is onto something
important.

Another way to say it is what you find if you search for "XML is not
formal" in <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/xml-uri/2000May/0376.html>.
 Actually it is enough to search for that string in the archive...

At 11:51 PM 2000-05-23 +0800, Rick JELLIFFE wrote:
>> Re: Dictionaries in the library
>> 
>> From: Tim Berners-Lee (timbl@w3.org)
> 
>> With formally specified languages, the spec is
>> in 1:1 correspondence with the language. 
>
>Not always: a formally-specified language could also be specified with
>a juridical process to guide interpretation and overcome flaws. (e.g.,
>the errata process for XML).
>
>It could also be specified accompanied by a "community tradition"
>process
>as well, saying that if most/all implementations interpret an ambiguous
>text 
>one way, that that is its meaning.
>
>(What is missing from most specs is a statement "please if you find an
>ambiguity,
>choose the less crazy interpretation", which may successfully divert
>legalists
>onto edifying dissections of craziness. :-)
>
>It is difficult to specify formally anything using just text: if you use
>an
>artificial language no-one understands it and errors creep in; if you
>use 
>technical English, it is not very expressive and prone to mistakes. This
>is
>why I think one must consider standards-reading as ultimately a social
>activity based on agreeing on respect/competency/experience/power roles;
>even artificial languages are human activities.
>
>To say that a language is defined by a formalism will, when that
>language
>gets used by communities, immediately fall down: few formalisms are 
>expressive enough to specify the software engineering intentions
>underlying
>its design. When SGML uses the term "generic identifier" it embodies a
>lot which 
>cannot be expressed in a high-level language definition system such as
>Z, for example. 
>But "generic identifier" is a concept at the heart of SGML as a
>language.
>
>Rick Jelliffe
>

Received on Tuesday, 23 May 2000 13:36:23 UTC