Re: how to observe RIF BLD consumer conformance?

Dan,

We struggled with this point based on RIF's status as an interchange format, not a rule language per se.  Thus the conformance refers to the ability to translate in a way that does not change the semantics, which includes entailments.

It is not, as you say, directly observable in a positive way, however it is negatively observable through sets of tests, ie you can test if it did not happen. 

-Chris


Dan Connolly wrote:
> I see:
> 
> "A RIF processor is a conformant BLDΤ,Ε consumer iff it implements a
> semantics-preserving mapping, μ, from the set of all BLDΤ,Ε formulas to
> the language L of the processor (μ does not need to be an "onto"
> mapping)."
>  -- http://www.w3.org/TR/rif-bld/#Conformance_Clauses
> 
> I don't see how this property is observable/testable; i.e. why
> this product class is defined at all.
> 
> A conformant RIF-BLD consumer isn't required to compute entailment?
> 
> This much is observable: "A conformant RIF-BLD consumer must reject all
> inputs that do not match the syntax of BLD." But that's just syntax
> checking.
> 
> editorial: why "conformant" rather than "conforming"?
> 
> 

-- 
Dr. Christopher A. Welty                    IBM Watson Research Center
+1.914.784.7055                             19 Skyline Dr.
cawelty@gmail.com                           Hawthorne, NY 10532
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Received on Monday, 1 March 2010 17:09:14 UTC