[SCL] scl 1.1

[Bill Andersen]

Hi all.

See below.

On Nov 14, 2003, at 1922, Christopher Menzel wrote:

>>> "Let me emphasize Yet Again that this is an internal document (though
>>> of course anyone can look at it) and is intended only to get the
>>> concepts right."
>>
>> I fully understand this and hence discuss the issues which I think
>> may have principal shortcomings in this internal document.
>
> Great, you get the point!
>
>> General comments:
>>
>> I find this text far too complex to be usable for people who want to
>> build any real systems based on SCL.
>
> Oops, I guess you don't.

One thing to think about.  Tanel is right - the spec as it stands is 
very complex and if some of us are having a hard time reading it then 
certainly users will too.  But what users?  Who are those who "want to 
build [any] real systems based on SCL"?

I would suggest they are people building reasoners, not axiom writers.  
Look at the current situation with DLs.  I highly doubt that 99.9% of 
the "users" of DLs fully understand their semantics.  They just use it. 
  How?  They grab someone's editor and someone's reasoner and off they 
go.  The community who *builds* those tools is small and highly 
motivated to understand the spec.  For that reason I'm not worried 
about this issue and I don't think any change of direction is warranted 
- it's been three years now and it's time to wrap this up.

That said, other documents can and should be written, as Pat suggests, 
to popularize (S)CL.

   .bill