- From: Steven Adler <adler1@us.ibm.com>
- Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 09:17:47 -0400
- To: Laufer <laufer@globo.com>
- Cc: "deirdre.lee" <Deirdre.Lee@deri.org>, Makx Dekkers <mail@makxdekkers.com>, "manuel.carrasco-benitez" <Manuel.CARRASCO-BENITEZ@ec.europa.eu>, Newton Calegari <newton@nic.br>, DWBP WG <public-dwbp-wg@w3.org>
- Message-ID: <OFB1288BEA.FB31EC22-ON85257CA0.004862B6-85257CA0.00490A2A@us.ibm.com>
Laufer,
You raise a very good point. It would become extremely complex to have to
access large datasets via URI's, but is SPARQL the only way to do this? I
ask because IBM just discontinued RDF support in DB2 due to inadequate
customer demand. I am not personally biased against RDF because there may
be many reasons for IBM's decision:
1. We may not have marketed this capability.
2. DB2 may be too expensive or heavy for RDF use cases.
3. RDF users may not think about DB2 as their first choice in databases,
etc.
But I also have anecdotal developer stories that they do not like working
with RDF. So even though SPARQL is a very elegant way to gather up and
represent many URI's I would prefer if we also had other non-RDF methods
highlighted in our recommendations.
Is that possible?
Best Regards,
Steve
Motto: "Do First, Think, Do it Again"
From:
Laufer <laufer@globo.com>
To:
"manuel.carrasco-benitez" <Manuel.CARRASCO-BENITEZ@ec.europa.eu>
Cc:
Steven Adler/Somers/IBM@IBMUS, "deirdre.lee" <Deirdre.Lee@deri.org>, Makx
Dekkers <mail@makxdekkers.com>, Newton Calegari <newton@nic.br>, DWBP WG
<public-dwbp-wg@w3.org>
Date:
03/19/2014 08:19 AM
Subject:
Re: APIs to work with data on the web
Manuel,
I am not against URIs. They are the core.
But I think that it would be very difficult to a developer to guess what
would be the URIs of all the collections that she could get from the
datasets. For me, that's one reason to have a SPARQL endpoint instead of
having plan URIs for all possible queries.
Even if you don't have a SPARQL endpoint you will need a mapping to show
how to map a query to a URI. It could be considered a kind of query to URI
transformation. If you published the mapping schema to be read by a human,
we could say that the API is executed by the human that read the
documentation. In a scenario, we can think in an API that would receive a
SPARQL query and will return a URI. If a developer has the schema of the
dataset (I am talking about rdf), she could ask whatever she wants. In the
case that are few possibilities of different queries maybe only the URIs
could be sufficient.
I prefer a mix of URIs with a very basic set of APIs (I don't know the
blend). And a very good documentation.
Best,
Laufer
2014-03-19 7:01 GMT-03:00 <Manuel.CARRASCO-BENITEZ@ec.europa.eu>:
Laufer,
Let's look at URI and resource
Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986
"A URI is an identifier consisting of a sequence of characters …"
" 'resource' is used in a general sense for whatever might be identified
by a URI …"
URI is not just query; HTTP is just one of many schemes
Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) Schemes
http://www.iana.org/assignments/uri-schemes/uri-schemes.xhtml
Resource might be viewed as a package: many variants (e.g., several
languages) and useful information to provide metadata, context, etc.
We should address Linked Data (technical) and Linked Open Data (legal) in
different layers: the 5 starts are in the legal layer
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html
Let's consider URI with any scheme, though HTTP is the main protocol and
Linked Data paper states to "Use HTTP URIs …".
In a plain practical way: getting access to the data with simple,
permanent, short HTTP URI is refreshing J
Regards
(Manuel) Tomas
From: Laufer [mailto:laufer@globo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 5:30 PM
To: CARRASCO BENITEZ Manuel (DGT)
Cc: Steven Adler; deirdre.lee; Makx Dekkers; Newton Calegari; DWBP WG
Subject: Re: APIs to work with data on the web
Tomas,
I understand completely your point.
But I disagree. To me, it is not refreshing to represent a query using an
URI. Think about all the groupings that you can make over a dataset or
datasets.
Best,
Laufer
2014-03-18 13:18 GMT-03:00 <Manuel.CARRASCO-BENITEZ@ec.europa.eu>:
Laufer,
Going back to basics, the four point could be crashed into two
http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html
a) Use URIs to name and to point into things (resources)
b) Provide useful information as links (metadata, origin, etc)
Note that one URI could have many variants: languages, formats, time
(memento), etc. So
Get the "best" variant
http://example.com/1122
Get the useful information
http://example.com/1122?info
Get some specific variants
http://example.com/1122.fr
http://example.com/1122.xhtml
http://example.com/1122.es.txt
It is very refreshing to type an URI and get the "thing", even if
sometimes one would prefer a forgetful web J
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-international/1997JanMar/0053.html
As you can see, it is a subject with some pedigree.
Regards
Tomas
From: Laufer [mailto:laufer@globo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 3:24 PM
To: Steven Adler
Cc: CARRASCO BENITEZ Manuel (DGT); Deirdre.Lee@deri.org;
mail@makxdekkers.com; Newton Calegari; DWBP WG
Subject: Re: APIs to work with data on the web
Steve, Manuel,
I am not talking only about the Resources. Or, what are the things that
are exposed as Resources.
For example, in DBpedia there is a Resource for the album Houses of the
Holy (http://dbpedia.org/page/Houses_of_the_Holy).
There is also a Resource for the record label Atlantic Records (
http://dbpedia.org/page/Atlantic_Records), which is the record label from
the album Houses of the Holy.
What is the URI of all albums of the record label Atlantic Records?
My question is: could it be one Best Practice, recommended by of DWBP WG,
to provide a way of exposing the "Resource" All Albums of the Record Label
Atlantic Records?
Best Regards,
Laufer
2014-03-18 10:18 GMT-03:00 Steven Adler <adler1@us.ibm.com>:
Thanks. A few people have agreed with our position below, but some still
like the idea of API's for accessing Data. What is the process W3C uses
to resolve these points of view and when it is resolved, does the
conclusion get written into the Best Practices draft and/or do we also
include the lineage of the conclusion - that is, we we present the pros
and cons and reasons for the conclusion by also relating what we didn't
recommend and why?
Best Regards,
Steve
Motto: "Do First, Think, Do it Again"
From:
<Manuel.CARRASCO-BENITEZ@ec.europa.eu>
To:
Steven Adler/Somers/IBM@IBMUS, <Deirdre.Lee@deri.org>
Cc:
<mail@makxdekkers.com>, <newton@nic.br>, <public-dwbp-wg@w3.org>
Date:
03/18/2014 08:21 AM
Subject:
RE: APIs to work with data on the web
+1
- Resources should be addressable with a URI
- One should aim a common interface for humans and machine
http://www.w3.org/2013/dwbp/wiki/Data_on_the_Web_URI_Best_Practices
Regards
Tomas
From: Steven Adler [mailto:adler1@us.ibm.com]
Sent: Monday, March 17, 2014 4:34 PM
To: Lee, Deirdre
Cc: Makx Dekkers; Newton Calegari; public-dwbp-wg@w3.org
Subject: RE: APIs to work with data on the web
Excellent use case which begins to explore and spell out the advantages
and trade-offs of using API's to access Open Data. I would like to
explore this topic in greater detail. My own personal preference is data
access by HTTP and URI, because it provides a common interface for humans
and machines. But are there performance implications?
Best Regards,
Steve
Motto: "Do First, Think, Do it Again"
From:
"Lee, Deirdre" <Deirdre.Lee@deri.org>
To:
Newton Calegari <newton@nic.br>, Makx Dekkers <mail@makxdekkers.com>
Cc:
"public-dwbp-wg@w3.org" <public-dwbp-wg@w3.org>
Date:
03/17/2014 11:19 AM
Subject:
RE: APIs to work with data on the web
Hi all,
Very interesting article indeed and related to discussions we’re currently
having with developers as part of Open Data Ireland on how best to
publish/use machine-readable data.
I’ve added a use-case on it https://www.w3.org/2013/dwbp/wiki/Use_Cases
Please feel free to add points or pick up on nuances of the conversation
that I missed. Perhaps we could break this into multiple use-cases to look
at each of the aspects in more detail?
Cheers,
Deirdre
From: Newton Calegari [mailto:newton@nic.br]
Sent: 17 March 2014 13:19
To: Makx Dekkers
Cc: public-dwbp-wg@w3.org
Subject: Re: APIs to work with data on the web
Hi Laufer, I didn't know the Socrata.
Thanks for share the link, Makx. Very interesting text and point of view
about APIs.
BR,
Newton
Em 14/03/2014, à(s) 15:58, Makx Dekkers <mail@makxdekkers.com> escreveu:
For a different perspective on APIs, see this:
http://ruben.verborgh.org/blog/2013/11/29/the-lie-of-the-api/
Makx.
From: Newton Calegari [mailto:newton@nic.br]
Sent: Thursday, March 13, 2014 6:03 PM
To: public-dwbp-wg@w3.org
Subject: APIs to work with data on the web
Hi all,
Last week, Yaso and I were talking about APIs and how they are
important in all aspects of data on the web. APIs are one of the simplest
ways to access and to distribute data across the web, and we think that is
an important subject to be discussed on the WG.
To talk about APIs, we obviously need to discuss about URI and
descriptors. Carrasco written the first document [1] about it, besides
there are a few messages discussing it.
Moreover, I want to share some links I consider relevant and
useful to discuss about this topic.
Joshua Bloch, a software engineer and former Googler, published
an article on InfoQ [2] site and made a presentation called “How to Design
a Good API & Why it Matters” [3] (other Jushua's presentation about the
same subject, but the video is hosted on YouTube [4]). These links are
very interesting and I recommend to all of you, even who is already expert
in API design.
[1] Data on the Web URI Best Practices:
http://www.w3.org/2013/dwbp/wiki/Data_on_the_Web_URI_Best_Practices
[2] Joshua Bloch: Bumper-Sticker API Design:
http://www.infoq.com/articles/API-Design-Joshua-Bloch?utm_source=buffer&utm_campaign=Buffer&utm_content=buffer36801&utm_medium=twitter#.UvbdCPy0BT0.delicious
[3] How to Design a Good API & Why it Matters:
http://www.infoq.com/presentations/effective-api-design
[4] How to Design a Good API & Why it Matters (YouTube version):
https://www.youtube..com/watch?v=aAb7hSCtvGw
Best Regards,
Newton
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Received on Wednesday, 19 March 2014 13:18:19 UTC