"J-P. Rosen" <rosen@adalog.fr> wrote in message 
news:m92mq3$kji$1@dont-email.me...
> Le 13/01/2015 00:49, Randy Brukardt a écrit :
>> A true semantic interface would talk about semantic entities only, the
>> associated syntax would not enter into it.
>
> That would be a semantic ONLY interface, but syntax is also useful for
> some tools (especially coding rules checkers ;-) ).
>
> For example, checking that "end" mentions the entity name is 100%
> syntactic...

True enough. I just don't like the fact that the name of ASIS is misleading. 
And of course, a syntax-only tool would be quite easy to create without 
using any fancy interface. (Our syntax checker/pretty printer tool makes 
similar checks [not sure about that one].) A mostly semantic system with a 
bit of syntax mixed in (we do keep a bit of such information for error 
messages, purely semantic wouldn't work either) seems best to me. ASIS 
doesn't have enough abstraction for my taste.

                               Randy.