Roger—
It would clarify things if you distinguished:
a) "the start time must be before the end time”
and
b) “the value of the <start-time> element must [bear the appropriate relation to] the value of the <end-time> element”.
The former is (sort of) about the semantics of “start” and “end”. The latter is about the syntax of an expression.
> On Feb 26, 2015, at 7:26 AM, Costello, Roger L. <> wrote:
>
> Hi Folks,
>
> Here is some data about a meeting:
>
> <Meeting>
> <start-time>2015-02-26T08:00:00</start-time>
> <end-time>2015-02-26T09:00:00</end-time>
> </Meeting>
>
> The start time must be before the end time. .......... Is that a statement about semantics?
>
> The DOT reference manual says that "the keywords node, edge, digraph, subgraph, and strict are case insensitive." .......... Is that a statement about semantics?
>
> Which of the following are true:
>
> (a) The statement that "the meeting's start time must be before the end time" is a statement about semantics.
>
> (b) The statement that "the keywords are case insensitive" is a statement about semantics.
>
> (c) The statement that "the meeting's start time must be before the end time" is a statement about a data relationship (a co-constraint), it has nothing to do with the semantics of the meeting.
>
> (d) The statement that "the keywords are case insensitive" is a statement about how a lexer should tokenize the DOT language, it has nothing to do with the semantics of the keywords.
>
> (e) We spend too much time worrying about whether something should or shouldn't be labeled "semantics".
>
> (f) We should stop using the word "semantics" since nobody can agree to what it is.
>
> /Roger
>
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