In message
<eb19f3360912140217w109daf1ah3c9320fa3363d...@mail.gmail.com>, Dan
Brickley <dan...@danbri.org> writes
With every passing year the RDF tools do get a bit better, but also
the old ones code rot a bit, or new things come along that need
supporting (GRDDL, RDFa etc.). What can be done in the SemWeb and
Linked Data scene so that it becomes a bigger part of people's real
dayjobs to improve our core tooling? Are the resources already out
there but poorly coordinated? Would some lightweight collective
project management help? Are there things (eg. finalising a ruby
parser toolkit) that are weekend-sized jobs, month sized jobs; do they
look more like msc student summer projects or EU STREP / IP projects
in scale? Could we do more by simply transliterating code between
languages? ie. if something exists in Python it can be converted to
Ruby or vice-versa...? Are funded grants available (eg. JISC in UK?)
that would help polish, package, test and integrate basic entry-level
RDF / linked data software tools?
Back on the original thread, I am talking here so far only about core
RDF tools, eg. having basic RDF -to- triples facility available
reliably in some language of choice. As Jeni emphasises, there are
lots of other pieces of bridging technology needed (eg. into modern
JSON idioms). But when we are hoping to convert folk to use pure
generic RDF tools, we better make sure they're in good shape. Some
are, some aren't, and that lumpy experience can easily turn people
away...
I think some lightweight collective documentation work would help.
There is nothing I can spot on RDF or Linked Data software tools in the
W3C pages [1]. The most recent entry in the Editors and Tools section
of Dave Beckett's RDF Resource Guide [1] is dated 2005. Robin Cover
defers to this resource and has added nothing since 2004. Am I missing
a key resource here?
If we produced a grid, with RDF/Linked Data tasks on one axis and
programming languages on the other, we could at least start to map the
space.
Richard
[1] http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/
[2] http://planetrdf.com/guide/
--
Richard Light
