Semantics
Formulating a rigorous semantics of a large, complex, practical programming language is a daunting task even for experienced specialists, and the resulting specification can be difficult for anyone but experts to understand. The following are some of the ways in which programming language semantics can be described; all languages use at least one of these description methods, and some languages combine more than one
- Natural language: Description by human natural language.
- Formal semantics: Description by mathematics.
- Reference implementations: Description by computer program
- Test suites: Description by examples of programs and their expected behaviors. While few language specifications start off in this form, the evolution of some language specifications has been influenced by the semantics of a test suite (e.g. in the past the specification of Ada has been modified to match the behavior of the Ada Conformity Assessment Test Suite).
Read more about this topic: Programming Language Specification