On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 1:30 PM, Christopher Menzel <cmenzel@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Nov 10, 2010, at 12:16 PM, Alan Ruttenberg wrote:
>> On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 10:14 AM, Kingsley Idehen
>> <kidehen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>>> Alan / John: maybe we could use this thread to arrive at obvious common
>>> ground re. data integration and the diminishing need for a syntax level
>>> lingua franca.
>>
>> Kingsley includes me presumably because of a response to an earlier
>> message, not copied to this list.
>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-lod/2010Nov/0322.html
>>
>> I think there *is* a need for a lingua franca for intercomputer
>> communication. But I support the idea that there should be alternative
>> syntaxes (as long as they can be clearly translated to the lingua
>> franca).
>
> Well, that is pretty much exactly the idea behind Common Logic. It is a
>semantic framework that supports an unlimited number of alternative languages
>-- although it does not privilege any particular language (a.k.a., CL
>dialect) over any other (although the KIF-like dialect CLIF is sort of a
>default). (01)
*Any* semantic framework (including OWL) supports an unlimited number
of alternative languages (by language I assume you mean concrete
syntax). However, the effect of not privileging any particular syntax
is that unless there are reliable translators between the different
syntaxes there is an (uninteresting, but very real) barrier to
integration. I haven't checked on CL, but IMO, it should have a
normative syntax that is considered the one that projects should make
sure they can produce, so as to remove the aforementioned barrier. (02)
The main difference between OWL(DL) and CL (correct me if I am wrong)
is that CL lets you say anything in FOL, while OWL let's you only say
some things in FOL, and (at least one thing - property transitivity)
that is in SOL. (03)
The main practical issue with using unrestricted CL is that there are
few systems that can reason (in a predictable way) over it. One might
consider it for communicating OWL, but then only some part of CL would
be able to be used, and I don't know that authoring systems are such
that they can helpful for users who want to do that. I'm also not sure
what would be done about transitivity, which is SOL. In any case, at
least for OWL, it would be a "nice to have", as we *do* have a
normative syntax (RDF/XML) which one can and should depend on, as the
lowest common denominator. (04)
A problem I see with all the normative languages is that they don't
support much in the way of syntactic abstraction - macros. They would
be much friendlier if they did, as then the formats themselves could
carry around the necessary machinery to translate from alternative
syntaxes to common syntax. I tried to advocate for that to be included
in the OWL spec, but didn't succeed. (05)
Best,
Alan (06)
>
> Chris Menzel
>
>
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> (07)
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