[SCL] REQUEST FOR FEDBACK: core syntax

[Murray Altheim]

John F. Sowa wrote:
> Pat, Jay, Tanel, and Murray,
> 
> We should give a clear statement of who or what
> is expected to read or write the SCL core syntax.
> 
>   1. If it's intended for people to read and write,
>      then human readability is essential.
> 
>   2. If it is intended as an intermediate language
>      for programs to read and write then simplicity
>      in the grammar is more important than human
>      readability.
> 
> I have been assuming that SCL core syntax is primarily
> intended for computational purposes, and people would
> prefer to use many other notations, such as controlled
> English (or French, or Estonian, or whatever) or some
> other previously designed language, such as infix
> predicate calculus, CGs, TMs, UML, or whatever.

I agree that SCL may be intended for computational purposes,
but I would strongly recommend that you take Tanel's advice
on this, as while it may be that computers process these
documents, it will be people who write the programs that do
this, and you can make their job a hell a lot harder by forcing
them to keep track of things in the syntax that could easily
be made explicit. If you're going to write requirements for
the SCL language (which I've long recommended), you might
enlist common ideas of what makes a good syntax vs. what
makes a bad syntax, and then you're beginning to get into
the territory that I'd consider myself a bit of an expert.
I don't look (frankly) at KIF or CGIF as particularly good
syntaxes -- there's *lots* of issues with both that need to
be addressed.

Explicit, unambiguous, easy to read and author (even by
hand), easy to debug, with verbosity *not* an issue. And
never be clever. I haven't met Tanel, but everything I read
and know about him suggests you should take his opinions on
syntax very seriously.

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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