WWW2007 Developers’ Track
Thursday, 5 April 2007
We’ve announced the program for this years’ Developers’ Track, and I’m very excited about the lineup.Semantic Web
Bringing Back the Link - With a Twist
Thursday, 22 June 2006
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 more, it’s necessary to use hyperlinks — the foundation of the Web — to tie resources together, without getting in users’ faces.sparta.py 0.8
Monday, 29 August 2005
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.Adding Semantics to Excel with Microformats and GRDDL
Saturday, 13 August 2005
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 hair out, but having the data nearby and ready for analysis is sloppy, but oh-so-effective. The challenge is to make the data reusable elsewhere.Separating the Data Model from its Serialisation
Wednesday, 10 August 2005
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 working groups, where hours — no, days — can be spent agonizing over whether to make something an attribute or an element.(Statistical) Information Wants to Be Free
Friday, 1 July 2005
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 charge, as before.Data Modeling and Abstraction
Friday, 29 April 2005
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 BEA’s* effort to abstract away the specifics of how data is stored.Can Somebody Explain to Me...
Friday, 1 April 2005
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. Years of disquiet about attributes by portions of the XML cognoscenti support this view unintentionally, I think.Sparta.py 0.7
Thursday, 17 March 2005
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.Using XML in Data-Oriented Applications
Wednesday, 2 March 2005
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 / hopped on the bandwagon / drunk the Kool-Aid.Sparta.py 0.6: RDF (and RSS!) Made Easy
Monday, 6 December 2004
Version 0.6 of sparta.py is now available. Changes include:sparta.py 0.5: RDF made easy
Saturday, 21 August 2004
Version 0.5 of sparta.py is now available; with this release, I think it’s roughly feature-complete.The ‘Document’ in Document-Oriented Messaging
Thursday, 5 August 2004
(Another instalment in “XML Heresies.”)XML Infoset, RDF and Data Modelling
Friday, 28 May 2004
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 the Infoset.sparta.py 0.4: Data Binding for RDF in Python
Saturday, 15 May 2004
After a short pause (OK, nearly three years), I’ve released version 0.4 of sparta.py.Madonna Dead
Saturday, 24 April 2004
This is why heuristics aren’t such a hot idea.The Semantic Web’s Dirty Little Secret
Tuesday, 30 December 2003
Browse through the W3C Semantic Web pages and you’ll see this notice in a few different forms:The New RDF
Sunday, 7 December 2003
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 a 71 page primer is quite enough!Real-World RDF
Thursday, 29 May 2003
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”.We need WikiVerbs!
Friday, 9 May 2003
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.Wiki as Semantic Web?
Monday, 28 April 2003
Anybody else notice how you can use a Wiki like a Semantic Web engine?RDF Model and Syntax
Saturday, 16 November 2002
Jack William Bell makes a precise, short and readable effort at explaining why RDF is simple and important.