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XLR: Extensible Language and Runtime
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Semantics define the meaning of the program, in other words those aspects of the code, which are not directly visible. English semantics make "The small large rabbit compiled the cat" incorrect, even if its syntax is correct, because there are contradictions in the meaning (the rabbit can't be both large and small) and a verb that doesn't make sense (what does it mean for a rabbit to compile something?). In most development environments, the code space is represented as text (known as "source code"), and the semantics essentially defines the meaning of syntactically valid text, if any. For instance, in C, an identifier such as Blob may denote a variable or a function, depending on previous declarations. You can use a variable in expressions, or assign values to it. You can call a function. By extension, we can also consider semantics rules for non-textual forms of code. For instance, the fact that <FONT COLOR="#FF0000"> in HTML makes text display as red is a form of semantics. It doesn't matter if that code is being edited textually or using a WYSIWYG editor, its meaning remains the same. For Concept Programming, one objective of well-designed semantics is to reduce semantic noise, to be easy to extend, and to be able to correctly identify and report errors.
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Copyright 2006 Christophe de Dinechin (Blog)
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