Re: Restpark - Minimal RESTful API for querying RDF triples

Hi Hugh,

On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 10:56 AM, Hugh Glaser <hg@ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
> (Yes, Linked Data API is cool!, and thanks for getting back to the main subject, although I somehow doubt anyone is expecting to read anything about it in this thread now :-) )

I'm still hoping we might return to the original topic :)

What this discussion, and in fact most related discussions about
SPARQL as a web service, seems to overlook is that there are several
different issues in play here:

* Whether SPARQL is more accessible to developers than other forms of
web API. For example is the learning curve, harder or easier?

* Whether offering query languages like SPARQL, SQL, YQL, etc is a
sensible option when offering a public API and what kinds of quality
of service can be wrapped around that. Or do other forms of API offer
more options for providing quality of service by trading off power of
query expression?

* Techniques for making SPARQL endpoints scale in scenarios where the
typical query patterns are unknown (which is true of most public
endpoints). Scaling and quality of service considerations for a public
web service and a private enterprise endpoint are different. Not all
of the techniques that people use, e.g. query timeouts or partial
results, are actually standardised so plenty of scope for more
exploration here.

* Whether SPARQL is the only query language we need for RDF, or for
more general graph databases, or whether there are room for other
forms of graph query languages

The Linked Data API was designed to provide a simplified read-only API
that is less expressive than full SPARQL. The goals were to make
something easier to use, but not preclude helping developers towards
using full SPARQL if that's what they wanted. It also fills a
short-fall with most Linked Data publishing approaches, i.e. that
getting lists of things, possibly as a paged list, possibly with some
simple filtering is not easy. We don't need a full graph query
language for that. The Linked Data Platform is looking at that area
too, but its also got a lot more requirements its trying to address.

Cheers,

L.

--
Leigh Dodds
Freelance Technologist
Open Data, Linked Data Geek
t: @ldodds
w: ldodds.com
e: leigh@ldodds.com

Received on Thursday, 18 April 2013 10:28:10 UTC