Operational and Denotational Semantics

#Catagory #Semantics
There are formal tools for describing the semantics of a language but, because of their complexity, they are mostly used with simplified academic languages, not real-life programming behemoths.

If we give the semantics of a language in terms of a mathematical model we speak of mathematical or denotational semantics. If the semantics is in terms of a (virtual) computing machine, we speak of operational semantics. Both are two different and important ways of explicating the meaning of a programming language.

• Operational and Denotational Semantics