Re: PROV-ISSUE-53 (sparql-query-is-overkill): can't we have a lighter method to retrieve provenance-uri, given a document uri? [Accessing and Querying Provenance]

SPARQL might well be considered overkill if you had to implement it from 
scratch.  But there are now many SPARQL toolkits that doesn't seem to be such an 
issue.  If you do a REST interface, it would likely be backed by some kind of 
database, so not so much complexity saving there.

I think there's a case for defining a simple REST API that might be implemented 
over a SPARQL store using an LDA 
(http://code.google.com/p/linked-data-api/wiki/Specification) toolkit, or by 
other means.  It's not clear to me if that would receive more developer 
attention.  Maybe for the time being we might define both (REST and SPARQL) and 
review them as we approach candidate recommendation.  (Oh, but that won't apply 
to the PAQ, will it?)

(BTW, SPARQL is not inherently non-RESTful for simple queries.)

#g
--


Provenance Working Group Issue Tracker wrote:
> PROV-ISSUE-53 (sparql-query-is-overkill): can't we have a lighter method to retrieve provenance-uri, given a document uri? [Accessing and Querying Provenance]
> 
> http://www.w3.org/2011/prov/track/issues/53
> 
> Raised by: Luc Moreau
> On product: Accessing and Querying Provenance
> 
> Isn't it too onerous to require third parties to provide sparql endpoints, simply to answer the query illustrated in http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/prov/raw-file/default/paq/provenance-access.html#third-party-services  (give the provenance-uris for this resource)?
> 
> Stian had suggested a REST service to answer this query, encoding the URL as an argument passed to the service. I had outlined a variant with GET instead of POST.
> 
> Some implementers may not use an RDF serialization of provenance, and therefore, it would be good to have a non-SPARQL approach for finding a provenance URI.
> 
> 
> 
>

Received on Thursday, 28 July 2011 21:40:37 UTC