Re: Modularization [Was - Re: LDP interfaces in Java (based on Jena and JAX-RS)]

On 8/7/12 9:38 AM, Wilde, Erik wrote:
> the important thing to keep in mind with metamodels is the ecosystem
> backing them; ecosystems of developers, systems, software,
> query/processing languages supporting them, and binding frameworks for
> programming languages. sure i can map a relational model to a generalized
> graph (and vice versa), but is it a cost-effective way for me to do when
> all i need to do is perfectly well served in a relational world where i
> can easily find millions of developers and a vast ecosystems of systems
> and tools? there is a reason why there is a very rich ecosystem of
> metamodels out there, despite the fact that you can always define mapping
> rules.
First off, I think you mean SQL Relational DBMS world rather than 
"relational" in general since this entire subject matter is 
fundamentally part of the same realm.

A SQL relational DBMS is constrained by the following:

1. schema first
2. keys are based on record values as opposed to references
3. relationship semantics are sparse and schema constrained.

Mapping SQL RDBMS hosted data to Linked Data is already effectively 
covered by the R2RML effort. Net effect, you can achieve the following, 
right now re. masses of RDBMS developers:

1. showcase Linked Data value
2. showcase how Linked Data builds on what exists via R2RML atop ODBC 
and/or JDBC data access.

To the RDBMS community Linked Data delivers:

1. schema-last -- alleviates pain associated with schema-first which is 
an agility killer
2. de-referenable URI based names that serve as super keys
3. powerful data access mechanism that more fine-grained than ODBC and 
JDBC -- URIs are powerful data source names
4. powerful data representation mechanism that enables powerful data 
integration driven by relationship semantics -- basic example is 
reconciliation of data across disparate databases (from same or 
different vendors) via exploitation of implicit and explicit 
co-reference semantics.

-- 

Regards,

Kingsley Idehen	
Founder & CEO
OpenLink Software
Company Web: http://www.openlinksw.com
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