Re: Semantic Web User Agent Conformance

"Sean B. Palmer" <sean@miscoranda.com> writes:
> You have the same confusion as Alan, which I think was brought on by
> my use of the term "User Agent". This is part of a User Agent only,
> the very low level access part. Sort of like an HTTP module in
> Firefox--it's just a single and very primitive part of the User Agent
> I'm describing. Nothing to do with actually using the RDF at all, it's
> the step before that: getting the RDF.

If you're thinking about the same thing I'm thinking...

The first time I implemented this bit of code I called it a "pool".  It
was in C++ and I had subclasses of Pool which did various levels of
logical inference and (I hoped, some day) web retrieval.

The most recent time I implemented this bit of code I called it a
"harvester".

In the SPARQL world, it's a kind of proxy.  You ask it questions via
SPARQL; it asks other folks questions (using SPARQL) and does inference.

The APIs don't have to be SPARQL of course.

If it stores any data, it does so as a cache.  It doesn't store data
itself.   If you're using SPARQL Update, it should make the changes back
on the source data.    It's an inferencing aggregator.

I think maybe the right term for this bit of code is 'Semantic Web Engine'.

I occasionally imagine I'll implement a good one and call it "Alfred"
(after Alfred Horn, Alfred North Whitehead, and Bruce Wayne's butler,
since it has elements of each).  It would be really nice to define the
market for these things, so they can compete and be plug-compatible.

       -- Sandro

Received on Thursday, 22 November 2007 21:38:47 UTC