[SCL] REQUEST FOR FEDBACK: core syntax

[Murray Altheim]

pat hayes wrote:
> Guys, I'd appreciate feedback (on something more important than 
> terminology :-).
> 
> After thrashing around for a while, I think that the best choice for 
> the 'core' syntax is a KIF-style syntax, but tweaked a little to make 
> it easier to read.  Chief changes are these:
> 
> 1.  No explicit syntactic marking of variables: a variable is just a 
> name which is bound by a quantifier. This makes the examples a lot 
> less ugly to read for many people and gets rid of the need to handle 
> free vars as a special case in the MT.
> 
> 2.  No explicit marking for forall and &: a conjunction is just a 
> list of sentences and the unmarked quantifier case is the forall.  So 
> for example this KIF
> 
> (forall (?x ?y)(implies (and (P ?x)(P ?y)) (P ?x ?y) ))
> 
> would look like this:
> 
> (x y)(implies ((P x)(P y)) (P x y) ))

I really much prefer the latter, as it's very clear about the
predicates. I'm sure those outside this group will see "forall",
"implies", etc. and have a better understanding than the implied
(and hidden) predicates in your proposed change.

> 3. Use of parentheses and first-name-after-'(' as a universal 
> grouping device, so that for example the header syntax will be
> 
> (scl:ontology (scl:header <sentence>*) <sentence>+)
> 
> rather than the ad-hoc double-colon thingie I invented.

I like this better.

> QUESTION: Any strong objections to this change?
> 
> Note, I still plan to define a 'strict' KIF dialect which will accept 
> real KIF 3.0 syntax.
> 
> BTW, I am (we are) under severe pressure from other groups who want 
> to use SCL, to get a core syntax finished and locked down ASAP, even 
> before the rest of the document is finished, so we need to move on 
> this.
> 
> So, strong feelings, please.

If this isn't strong enough, I'll stop bathing for a week and
try again.

Murray

......................................................................
Murray Altheim                    http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK               .

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