So What's big Deal about Semantics

More often than not I have to face this question from my friends as what I am doing these days and what kind of project I am working on. It use to be a joke among our friend circle in India as "What is the Similarity between a Beggar and a Software Professional? Whenever they meet they ask only one Question Which Platform?". I guess more or less we Software professionals are like that, especially those who fall under one special category called GEEKS :)

But the next moment I am faced with another set of questions. I tell them that I am working on Semantic Database. This starts a new set of questions. Its a new area of computer science and is not known to many IT Professionals still. Few of them even went to ask me which company's product is Semantic Database as they were confused with normal database and also why did I not try oracle database than going for Semantic Database. This reminded me of early days (1996) of my career when I started working on Delphi and whenever I told my friends that I am working on Delphi the first question they asked then was "Is it a Database?"

In my Last Post I left with a Question "What is Semantics?"

As per Wiki "Semantics refers to the aspects of Meaning that are expressed in Language, Code or other form of representation". Semantics is the study that relates signs to things in the world and patterns of signs to corresponding patterns that occur among the things the signs refer to.

Then the Question comes is What am I doing with Semantics. How is Semantics related to Computer Science. In computer science, Semantics is considered in part as an application of mathematical logic. Semantics reflects the meaning of programs.

Here We come across few new Terms like
- Application of Mathematical Logic
- Meaning

We will deal with these in Subsequent posts.

Until Next Time...:)