Semantic Web entries
WWW2007 Developers’ Track
We’ve announced the program for this years’ Developers’ Track, and I’m very excited about the lineup. For example, Ryan Boyd from Google will be presenting about GData right before...
published on Thursday, April 5 2007
Bringing Back the Link - With a Twist
Recently, there’s been a resurgence for the Link element in HTML; everything from Microformats to Atom autodiscovery is using it. This isn’t surprising; as machines start processing Web documents...
published on Thursday, June 22 2006 ( 8 comments )
sparta.py 0.8
I’m happy to announce that version 0.8 of sparta, a simple API for RDF, is now available. As always, feedback and suggestions are appreciated. This revision requires rdflib 2.2.1,...
published on Monday, August 29 2005 ( 6 comments )
Adding Semantics to Excel with Microformats and GRDDL
When I worked in the financial industry, I quickly noticed that Excel spreadsheets contain the bulk of the data in the enterprise. It may make IT execs tear their...
published on Saturday, August 13 2005 ( 1 comment )
Separating the Data Model from its Serialisation
For some time, I’ve noticed that people defining XML formats spend an inordinate amount of time talking about the structure of the format. This is especially apparent in standards...
published on Wednesday, August 10 2005 ( 11 comments )
(Statistical) Information Wants to Be Free
The Australian Bureau of Statistics has announced that as of today, their online publications and tables are now free to download, instead of requiring an account and a per-download...
published on Friday, July 1 2005 ( 1 comment )
Data Modeling and Abstraction
Today’s release of Tiger includes a new but little-discussed framework for developers, CoreData. What’s most interesting to me is its similarities — and differences — to SDO, IBM and...
published on Friday, April 29 2005
Can Somebody Explain to Me...
RDF has a simple, usable, universal model; everything’s nodes and arcs, so it avoids the problems of the Infoset, which IMO are brought by its complexity and special cases....
published on Friday, April 1 2005 ( 4 comments )
Sparta.py 0.7
I’m happy to announce that version 0.7 of sparta.py, a simple API for RDF, is now available. As always, feedback and suggestions are appreciated. My goal for this release...
published on Thursday, March 17 2005 ( 2 comments )
Using XML in Data-Oriented Applications
So, you’ve got some data that you need to give to somebody else, and you want to use XML to do it; good for you, you’ve seen the light...
published on Wednesday, March 2 2005 ( 5 comments )
Sparta.py 0.6: RDF (and RSS!) Made Easy
Based on feedback (thanks, John), it's now mapped to an object that implements a subset of the interface of sets.Set, and produces a full sets.Set when you call the copy() method. rdf:Seq is mapped to a list, joining rdf:List; this allows Sparta to work with RSS 1.0, along with other formats that use Seq. The factory takes an optional schema_store argument, so you can store schema hints for Spara separately, if you wish.
published on Monday, December 6 2004 ( 1 comment )
sparta.py 0.5: RDF made easy
Version 0.5 of sparta.py is now available; with this release, it's roughly feature-complete.
published on Saturday, August 21 2004 ( 1 comment )
The ‘Document’ in Document-Oriented Messaging
(Another instalment in “XML Heresies.”) One of the foundations of most vendors’ approach to Web services is called document-oriented messaging. This is the notion that interoperability is improved by describing...
published on Thursday, August 5 2004 ( 10 comments )
XML Infoset, RDF and Data Modelling
I’ve been talking with a few people about my previous assertion that the Infoset is a bad abstraction for data modelling, and my subsequent post about the informational properties of...
published on Friday, May 28 2004 ( 5 comments )
sparta.py 0.4: Data Binding for RDF in Python
After a short pause (OK, nearly three years), I’ve released version 0.4 of sparta.py. Sparta is a simple API for RDF that binds RDF nodes to Python objects and RDF...
published on Saturday, May 15 2004 ( 4 comments )
Madonna Dead
This is why heuristics aren't such a hot idea. UPDATE: For those wondering what this is about, the original version of this article had a picture of Madonna, the actor/singer/etc.,...
published on Saturday, April 24 2004
The Semantic Web’s Dirty Little Secret
Browse through the W3C Semantic Web pages and you’ll see this notice in a few different forms: Additional support for this activity has been provided by DARPA under the DAML...
published on Tuesday, December 30 2003 ( 5 comments )
The New RDF
I spent a little time on the plane the other day reading the latest WD of the RDF Primer. I didn’t attempt to review the entire document set, as reading...
published on Sunday, December 7 2003 ( 1 comment )
Real-World RDF
Jo Walsh has created a Semantic Web system that appeals quite strongly - a means of using RDF to map to the real world in "gonzo geographical data collection". Very...
published on Thursday, May 29 2003
We need WikiVerbs!
Before, I was wondering about the intersection of Wikis and the Semantic Web. I've since done some noodling and prototyping, and the idea came together on the train home tonight....
published on Friday, May 9 2003 ( 3 comments )
Wiki as Semantic Web?
Anybody else notice how you can use a Wiki like a Semantic Web engine? For example, define a WikiName, say PersonThing. Only use the PersonThing WikiName on pages that identify......
published on Monday, April 28 2003 ( 4 comments )
RDF Model and Syntax
Jack William Bell makes a precise, short and readable effort at explaining why RDF is simple and important. In the article and subsequent discussion, it's clear that RDF model and...
published on Saturday, November 16 2002