A Textual Syntax and Toolset for Well-Founded Ontologies
Matheus L. Coutinho, João Paulo A. Almeida, Tiago Prince Sales, Giancarlo Guizzardi · Frontiers in artificial intelligence and applications · 2024
Diagrammatic and textual languages differ significantly with respect to the experience they offer to language users. While diagrammatic languages leverage visual variables to improve communication and problem solving, textual languages facilitate significantly a number of tasks including version control, model editing, model merging, parsing, etc. In this paper, we explore the design of a textual language for UFO-based ontologies, whose constructs mirror those of the OntoUML language. The language is supported by a rich VS Code-based editor, supporting (semantically-motivated) syntax verification, syntax highlight, autocomplete, and full integration into the OntoUML server ecosystem. A package manager is also offered to support ontology modularization and reuse, drawing inspiration from software package managers. Such functionality is currently not available to languages such as (Onto)UML and Semantic Web languages such as OWL.