Re: ANN: SparqlMotion - a visual semantic web scripting language

Thanks for your positive and interesting feedback, Joshua!

Joshua Shinavier wrote:
> Hi Holger,
> 
> 
> On Nov 15, 2007 1:07 PM, Holger Knublauch <holger@knublauch.com> wrote:
>> SparqlMotion [1] is a new visual language from TopQuadrant that enables
>> average users to define scripts that import, post-process, query and
>> visualize data using semantic web technology.
> 
> This is very cool.  I like the fact that your scripts are interactive
> (through the "user input" modules), and the neat integration with
> Eclipse.

Plus we will provide a web interface similar to Yahoo Pipes shortly 
(TopBraid Live has all the building blocks for that).  This will 
hopefully make this technology more accessible.  On the other hand, the 
rich Eclipse/TBC UI will of course be more powerful and flexible.


>> Users can define and
>> share those scripts as OWL/RDF models, based on a dedicated SparqlMotion
>> ontology [2] and module library [3].
> 
> That being the case, will you be able to build distributed/networked scripts?

Since the scripts are OWL models, you could use the whole machinery of 
semantic web tools to process them.  This includes owl:imports, 
subclassing of existing module types, etc.  Theoretically, scripts could 
even manipulate themselves, and could be derived by applying inference 
engines.

It is too early to judge which of those possibilities will be fruitful 
on the long term.  However, we imagine that libraries of building blocks 
(sub-scripts) could be shared and reused.  For example we have module 
types sml:ApplyConstruct and sml:FilterByConstruct which add, replace or 
filter triples defined through a SPARQL construct.  Someone could create 
a pipe using those module types to convert certain triples from one 
ontology to another (or to translate units etc).  As long as those 
modules have URIs, anyone else could reuse them as web services via 
owl:imports.

I forgot to mention that SparqlMotion is built for extensibility, and 
the execution engine can be extended with your own module types through 
an Eclipse extension point.  Each module type in the RDF/OWL model is 
backed by one Java class on the engine/server.  This could of course 
also be generalized into modules that call remote Java code through a 
web service.


>> An ontology editor such as
>> TopBraid Composer [4] can be used to define the data and execution flow
>> of these scripts using drag and drop.  Scripts can be executed within
>> Composer or on the Web using the TopBraid Live platform.
> 
> An RDF pipeline language plus a Flash UI... sounds good to me :-)

Did I mention that TopQuadrant is currently hiring :) ?

We are also open to partnering with other companies to push this technology.

Thanks
Holger

Received on Friday, 16 November 2007 17:27:28 UTC