[Scl] Re: Report on Common Logic

[pat hayes]

>Tanel,
>
>I agree:
>
>>  From this I guess that unless we create an easy-to-understand,
>>  basically first-order SCL and then an RDF translation into that
>>  _soon_, widely noticed alternative ways to achieve similar goals
>>  will appear. Not that these would be bad, but I believe that
>>  the basic SCL approach is the sensible one to take.
>
>I think that we should co-opt Ian and anyone else who wants
>to develop an alternative FOL base by presenting as clean and
>clear a version of FOL as anyone else can show -- ASAP.

We have no possibility of co-opting Ian, who has been waging a 
long-drawn-out intellectual battle within Webont to try to render the 
entire planet's notation and semantics into description logics. I 
refuse to go along with the Horrocks/Pan proposal as an option for 
SCL (or RDF itself).

>In my previous note, I summarized some points, which I believe
>can help simplify the presentation of the SCL without changing
>the basic semantics.
>
>The most complex feature of SCL is the handling of sequence
>variables, and I don't know of anybody who really needs them.
>If they are in the SCL foundation, I'm willing to put them
>into the CG version, but do we really need to include them
>in the version we produce for December?

No, and they have been isolated within the SCL project for some time 
now. But we can clearly describe SCL-without-seqvars as a special 
(and extremely useful) case, and indeed spend considerable effort on 
its special properties. John, if you want to restrict the CG version 
of SCL to the case without seqvars that will be quite acceptable: 
most FO TP engines will be in that subset also.

>
>My greatest fear is that Seqvars will be more of a turn-off
>than a selling point for some of our most important customers.

They are an option for all our customers.

>If we are going to simplify SCL to get something out quickly,
>I would rather drop Seqvars than anything else.

Please don't make more trouble by re-opening old debates. The 
barriers to getting SCL out are now almost entirely to do with 
exposition: let us leave the settled technical debates alone and 
concentrate on writing.

John, we still await a CG concrete syntax.

Everyone else: we also still need an XML concrete syntax.

Pat

>John
>
>
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