RE: Designing a Linked Data developer experience

Great post, Ruben! Ultimately, I’d like to see something like the Interface Builder [2] that allows a GUI to be composed from different LD components in a WYSIWIG style that allows the composition of elements to create compelling applications. Ideally, developers don’t need to know the underpinnings to do interesting and useful things, and middleware developers can create components to work in such an ecosystem. You should be able to attach data sources, and components such as WebID login by dragging them into place, and smart connectors can create links to other components based on their interfaces.

To be successful, it needs to not be about Linked Data, but about the rich user experience that comes from having access to components that connect because of their exposed semantics, and the ability to pull from the knowledge on the web.

[2] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/12/the-legacy-of-next-lives-on-in-os-x/2/



I can’t help but remark that this reminds me of the “mashup-craze” of the late nillies, especially with the part about attaching data sources (the now-defunct Yahoo Pipes<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Pipes> being the primary example). Similarly, it had components for plugging in structured data sources (based on XML and JSON, if I remember correctly). Perhaps linked data sources could help provide the power that these kinds of mashups previously lacked (and which lead to their eventual irrelevance)?


William

From: Gregg Kellogg <gregg@greggkellogg.net>
Sent: December-28-18 2:47 PM
To: Ruben Verborgh (UGent-imec) <Ruben.Verborgh@UGent.be>
Cc: semantic-web <semantic-web@w3.org>
Subject: Re: Designing a Linked Data developer experience

On Dec 28, 2018, at 8:20 AM, Ruben Verborgh (UGent-imec) <Ruben.Verborgh@UGent.be<mailto:Ruben.Verborgh@UGent.be>> wrote:

Dear all,

The thread on easier RDF on this mailing list was/is probably the discussion of the year.

Another perspective on this topic is “how can we make Linked Data easy for non-RDF people?”
Or perhaps: “do developers need to know RDF to build Linked Data applications?”

While Semantic Web technologies have been successful in several specialized areas,
we still don’t have end-user applications that directly use Linked Data from the Web.
We’ve often referred to it as our chicken-and-egg problem,
and even though there’s a lot of data online, we’re not seeing a lot of consumer apps.

In my latest blog post [1], I am arguing that we haven’t sufficiently focused
on front-end developers, who are the ones building apps for end users.
Such front-end developers are very hesitant to start working with RDF or even “easy RDF”.
Rather, they want integration with existing languages, frameworks, and tools they are using.
And whether we like it or not, those include JavaScript, React, GraphQL, and the likes.

This led me to the question of whether we can design a developer experience for Linked Data
without needing to expose RDF and its complexities, with a couple of concrete suggestions
and lessons learned.

Your feedback is most welcome.

Great post, Ruben! Ultimately, I’d like to see something like the Interface Builder [2] that allows a GUI to be composed from different LD components in a WYSIWIG style that allows the composition of elements to create compelling applications. Ideally, developers don’t need to know the underpinnings to do interesting and useful things, and middleware developers can create components to work in such an ecosystem. You should be able to attach data sources, and components such as WebID login by dragging them into place, and smart connectors can create links to other components based on their interfaces.

To be successful, it needs to not be about Linked Data, but about the rich user experience that comes from having access to components that connect because of their exposed semantics, and the ability to pull from the knowledge on the web.

Gregg

[2] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/12/the-legacy-of-next-lives-on-in-os-x/2/



Best,

Ruben

[1] https://ruben.verborgh.org/blog/2018/12/28/designing-a-linked-data-developer-experience/