[x3d-public] languages, specifications, models and ontologies.

[John Carlson]

Interesting.  What is the difference between a language specification 
(say Java Language Specification) and a specification language (say 
English or Zed)?   Can we have a specification language specification or 
a language specification language?

What's the difference between a model and a specification?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-based_specification

I would encourage that we use model-based specification. We already may 
have many models in the X3D specification already, and we have the X3D 
Unified Object Model (X3DUOM). The more we formalize the specification, 
the more we can automate the testing of implementations of the X3D 
specification.

The nice thing about models is you can do some reasoning about them, 
proving them correct, etc.   This is very hard in natural language 
still, I think.  Natural language and models can certainly work together.

We also have a converter from our models to a semantic ontology (is a 
semantic ontology a specification?).

If anyone wants to build a specification, model, ontology, or Java 
package for what I'm talking about, that would be really cool.

John