What Was the Syntax-Semantics Debate in the Philosophy of Science About?

The debate between critics of syntactic and semantic approaches to the formalization of scientific theories has been going on for over 40 years. I review the debate in light of a recent exchange between Hans Halvorson, Clark Glymour, and Bas van Fraassen and argue that the only remaining disagreement concerns the alleged difference in the language dependence of syntactic and semantic approaches. This difference turns out to be illusory