Issue 7946: Section: 7.2.8 (uml2-rtf) Source: (, ) Nature: Clarification Severity: Minor Summary: In my opinion, the sentence "When a language is reflective, there is no need to define another language to specify its semantics." is false. Any natural language is reflective. However, just take a dictionary of a language that you don't know, you will not understand anything. In fact, the semantics of UML is described in english, not in UML, which explains that you can understand the metamodel. Resolution: see above Revised Text: In the Infrastructure spec in section 7.2.8 on page 29, replace the following text: When a language is reflective, there is no need to define another language to specify its semantics. MOF is reflective since it is based on the InfrastructureLibrary, and there is thus no need to have additional meta-layers above MOF. by the following text: MOF is reflective since it is based on the InfrastructureLibrary. This allows it to be used to define itself. For this reason, no additional meta-layers above MOF are defined. Actions taken: November 23, 2004: received issue August 23, 2006: closed issue Discussion: The submitter raises a philosophical point that may be valid and is certainly debatable. However, the quoted statement was in the specific context of the explanation of the 4- layer model, where it was used to justify why the architecture stops the potentially infinite succession of metalevels at M3. However, the text itself can be modified to avoid making a statement that can be misunderstood as being a general statement. End of Annotations:===== m: webmaster@omg.org Date: 23 Nov 2004 12:38:44 -0500 To: Subject: Issue/Bug Report -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Name: Jean Louis Sourrouille Company: INSA mailFrom: jean-louis.sourrouille@insa-lyon.fr Notification: Yes Specification: reflection Section: 7.2.8 FormalNumber: infra Version: 03-09-15 RevisionDate: dec. 2003 Page: 28 Nature: Clarification Severity: Minor HTTP User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; fr-FR; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040910 Description In my opinion, the sentence "When a language is reflective, there is no need to define another language to specify its semantics." is false. Any natural language is reflective. However, just take a dictionary of a language that you don't know, you will not understand anything. In fact, the semantics of UML is described in english, not in UML, which explains that you can understand the metamodel.