On 11/6/2013 5:48 AM, Fabian Neuhaus wrote:
> - fUML is -- to the best of my knowledge -- not equipped with
> a model theoretic semantics, but with an operational semantics (01)
The fUML document is badly organized, and it should be rewritten
to show exactly what it is claiming and how it is specified. (02)
On the one hand, the authors claim to be specifying UML
diagrams in Common Logic (with the CLIF dialect). On the
other hand, they claim to be making UML diagrams "executable". (03)
But a declarative language, such as CLIF, isn't executable
*unless* you use logic programming methods (e.g. Prolog or SQL)
to add a "goal" or a "trigger". The SQL WHERE-clause, for
example, is purely declarative. You can specify it by defining
how any WHERE clause is translated to CL (or other version of FOL). (04)
But the SELECT verb makes the WHERE-clause a goal to be satisfied
by a search procedure. For DB updates, it can be used as a trigger
that raises an error condition when a constraint stated by the
WHERE-clause is violated. (05)
There are two kinds of UML diagrams: (06)
1. Declarative, such as the type hierarchies and the
E-R diagrams. (07)
2. Procedural, such as the activity diagrams, which are
inspired by but not identical to Petri nets. (08)
For the declarative diagram types, it's possible to give
a formal definition by specifying how each diagram type
is translated to CLIF. That would define it as a dialect
for a subset of CL, and it would inherit the CL model theory. (09)
For the procedural diagram types, the simplest way to specify
the semantics is by preconditions and postconditions. Those
can also be specified in CLIF. (010)
Recommendation: The logicians on this list should collaborate
with the fUML authors to revise the fUML documents by the
methods outlined above (or something similar). (011)
John (012)
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