Re: Definition of Semantic: was What Lua can do that other programming languages can't do?

[Javier Guerra Giraldez <javier@...>]

On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 1:45 AM, Ross Bencina
<rossb-lists@audiomulch.com> wrote:
>
>>> Attempts to go
>>> beyond that fail in the same way silly ideas like the "semantic
>>> web" nonsense of a few years back.
>
>
> I'm not sure where you're going here, but I think there is a need to
> differentiate between the general field of semantics in human knowledge and
> what is meant by "semantic" in programming languages theory (ie "semantic
> analysis" etc) -- which just means how to the language symbols map to
> machine operations or to the lambda calculus. This has nothing to do with
> "human meaning"


syntax and semantics come from linguistics.  in human languages,
there's syntax (this is a verb, this a noun, this a noun predicate,
etc) and semantics ("running" and "jumping" are both physical
activities, "to care" is an intransitive verb, "man", "woman" and
"child" are all humans, etc)

when defining programming languages, the meaning of syntax is
straightforward (ie: EBNF notation).  semantics is a little harder,
but it's still within the realm of the language definition.
implementation of a given definition should keep on the defined
semantics, and execution is a different thing altogether.  or maybe
execution is the meaning alluded by semantics?


--
Javier