Semantics

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Semantics

Semantics is an issue that has often been neglected during the design of communication languages. Such neglect is the direct result of the obscurity that surrounds the purpose and the desired features of communication languages. Although the semantic description of communication languages and their primitives is often limited to natural language descriptions, a well-defined semantic description is anything but a luxury. This is especially true if the communication language is intended for interaction among a diverse range of applications. Applications designers should have a shared understanding of the language, its primitives and the protocols associated with their use, and abide by that shared understanding.

The semantics of a communication language should exhibit those properties expected of the semantics of any other language. It should be grounded in theory, and it should be unambiguous. It should exhibit canonical form (similarity in meaning should lead to similarity in representation). Because a communication language is intended for interaction that extends over time amongst spatially dispersed applications, location and time should be carefully addressed by the semantics. Finally, the semantic description should provide a model of communication, which would be useful for performance modeling, among other things.

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