Re: Simple Linked Data Publishing For Non Programmers

Hello Kingsley,

On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 05:27:21PM -0400, Kingsley Idehen wrote:
> >Like I expected, she lost you in the second paragraph.
> 
> Okay, and what exactly was that?

Everything after "What is Linked Data?". Terms like "references",
"structured data", "EAV". You may have lost sense of your altitude. Come down
and draw a deep breath :-)

> >  But it would in
> >fact be much harder because this time, she would have no reason to learn it
> >and no tool to try out changes and see immediate *results*.
> 
> Again, I beg to differ. If she has any desire to for her work to be 
> discovered serendipitously without the markup tedium of HTML then Turtle 
> is a potential short cut.

How many people would actually use this data (via Sindice or some other
means) ? How many people use Google ? I know it's unfair but you cannot solve
a chicken egg problem by declaring one of the two to be there.

> >We have to be honest with ourselves about this technology. Whose problems 
> >does
> >it solve ?
> 
> I am going to give you a simple answer, one I am sure I've given in the 
> past re. Linked Data.
> 
> Problem: structured data representation, access, and integration across 
> disparate data sources.

Linear instead of exponential data integration cost is fine for big business
and spooks but I don't think it plays a role in a SME. Show me business cases
of RDF/SPARQL/OWL for SMEs.

> >  Who can understand it ?
> 
> Very simple, but that depends "who" is "whom" . Anyway, assuming the 
> basic user of a computer that has saved a Word Document and an Excel 
> Spreadsheet, you can explain as follows:

Great explanation! But the way from understanding it to publishing, consuming
or storing RDF is long and tedious.

> >Are the tools usable in practise ?
> 
> Of course they are. But I can't force you to accept that fundamental 
> point even though there's been ample evidence of that since 2007.

If you compare the tools with RDB technoglogy, they look bad.

Let's get something done about it. How would you realize stateful SPARQL
transactions via HTTP ?

> Question for you, if you don't mind. Which of the following are useless, 
> by virtue of questionable tools and/or utility comprehension?
> 
> 1. World Wide Web
> 2. ODBC (Open Database Connectivity)
> 3. Java Database Connectivity (JDBC)
> 4. Microsoft Entity Frameworks (a component of ADO.NET)
> 5. X.500 Directories
> 6. Hyperlinks
> 7. URIs.

Every one has it's use cases. Some have more, some have less.

The RDF/SPARQL/OWL stack has it's use cases and is here to stay. But we should
not rise expectations that can't be met (now).

Regards,

Michael Brunnbauer

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Received on Thursday, 26 July 2012 08:30:07 UTC