[SCL] What we need to do NOW.

[pat hayes]

Please let us focus on things that really do need to be finalized but 
have received almost no attention in our discussions, rather than 
re-visit old debates about points we have in fact settled.

1. There are two (essentially pure-syntax) extensions which I feel 
are vital to the success and deployment of SCL., cf. 
http://philebus.tamu.edu/pipermail/scl/2003-July/000304.html

Does everyone else agree??? Any discussion/ suggestions for modifications??

2. We urgently need a concrete SCL syntax for CGs. If this is not 
produced soon, then we will be obliged to simply omit CGs as part of 
the SCL proposal.

3. We need a concrete XML syntax (as vanilla as possible). This may 
be straightforward, but if anyone has any strong feelings about 
appropriate XML 'style' then please express them, or preferably 
design an XML syntax according to your preferred style.

4.  It would be nice to have a mechanism, or a set of protocols, to 
allow users to define lexical categories for particular concrete 
syntaxes (eg that all identifiers in an RDF-style concrete syntax 
must be legal URI references according to RFC 2396). I have no useful 
ideas about this, I confess, but would welcome suggestions. 
Basically, we have been focusing on the model theory and abstract 
syntax: but any SCL-compliant document will in fact be in a concrete 
syntax, and it would be good if we could  provide ways for users to 
indicate their concrete syntactic (and lexical) styles.

5. We need agreement(or at any rate discussion) on the proposal for a 
'roles' syntax for atoms, cf. 
http://philebus.tamu.edu/pipermail/scl/2003-July/000307.html

Note, there are large user groups (Rule ML, database applications) 
out here who MUST have some kind of unordered-labelled-argument 
syntax as an option, and the idea here is to do this as simply and 
semantically painlessly as possible.  The syntax outlined in that 
message is my best shot after a few tries, but if anyone can do 
better then by all means let us discuss any options.  Discussion??

Please, it would be very good if we could focus discussion on these 
issues, which are REQUIRED in order for us to make progress on a 
draft document.

I have been attempting to produce a readable document for some time 
now, and will try to get this done ASAP, but other mattrs (which pay 
my salary) are pressing.  I have been working in HTML but no doubt it 
could be rendered into Wurd if required.

If anyone has any potential inputs, please send me anything you have 
which might be useful and from which I can extract prose. Thanks.

Pat

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