A newbie question, if I may... Could you be so kind and explain to me in plain english meaning of 'denotational semantics' and 'operational semantics'? I'm familiar with the definitions and have read a lot of other material, but still struggling with these concepts. Probalby I need some use cases... or a practical exercise :)
How to define denotational and operational semantics for a given programming language? Can it be done for any language or there are any prereqs? What is the usual approach: if I have a description of a PL, for instance, how to build these two semantics for it? What should I start with? What should I get at the end of the exercise?
Many thanks...