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By Shelley Powers
July 2003
Pages: 352
ISBN 10: 0-596-00263-7 |
ISBN 13: 9780596002633
(Average of 3 Customer Reviews)
The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a structure for describing and interchanging metadata on the Web. Practical RDF explains RDF from the ground up, providing real-world examples and descriptions of how the technology is being used in applications like Mozilla, FOAF, and Chandler, as well as infrastructure you can use to build your own applications. This book cuts to the heart of the W3C's often obscure specifications, giving you tools to apply RDF successfully in your own projects.
Full Description
The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a structure for describing and interchanging metadata on the Web--anything from library catalogs and worldwide directories to bioinformatics, Mozilla internal data structures, and knowledge bases for artificial intelligence projects. RDF provides a consistent framework and syntax for describing and querying data, making it possible to share website descriptions more easily. RDF's capabilities, however, have long been shrouded by its reputation for complexity and a difficult family of specifications. Practical RDF breaks through this reputation with immediate and solvable problems to help you understand, master, and implement RDF solutions.
Practical RDF explains RDF from the ground up, providing real-world examples and descriptions of how the technology is being used in applications like Mozilla, FOAF, and Chandler, as well as infrastructure you can use to build your own applications. This book cuts to the heart of the W3C's often obscure specifications, giving you tools to apply RDF successfully in your own projects.
The first part of the book focuses on the RDF specifications. After an introduction to RDF, the book covers the RDF specification documents themselves, including RDF Semantics and Concepts and Abstract Model specifications, RDF constructs, and the RDF Schema. The second section focuses on programming language support, and the tools and utilities that allow developers to review, edit, parse, store, and manipulate RDF/XML. Subsequent sections focus on RDF's data roots, programming and framework support, and practical implementation and use of RDF and RDF/XML.
If you want to know how to apply RDF to information processing, Practical RDF is for you. Whether your interests lie in large-scale information aggregation and analysis or in smaller-scale projects like weblog syndication, this book will provide you with a solid foundation for working with RDF.
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Book details
First Edition: July 2003
ISBN: 0-596-00263-7
Pages: 352
Average Customer Reviews: (Based on 3 Reviews)
Featured customer reviews
Practical RDF Review, September 12 2003
Rating:
Submitted by Norman Richards
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Although I had heard a lot about RDF, I really have never been properly exposed to it. I had seen RDF used in RSS 1.0, but it was the more recent used of RDF by the creative commons for their licensing metadata that got me curious enough to want to learn more. So, I purchased this book in the hopes of learning more about RDF.
The first 6 chapters cover the basics of RDF. The book does a good job of introducing RDF basics, but I do feel the book ramped up a bit too quickly. I'll definitely have to re-read soem of those chapters to make sure I really understand the concepts. The diagrams in these chapters were really good at helping explain the concepts. I only wish there were more of them.
Chapters 8-11 cover different RDF libraries and RDF applications. I found these chapters useless. It was interesting to see some of the programming models that I could use do work with RDF, but I bought the book to learn about RDF, not about perl or python APIs.
Chapters 12-15 give good coverage of a number of technologies that use RDF. I found these chapters quite interesting. I felt Chapter 13 on RSS (even though it is limited to the RDF variants of RSS) gave better coverage of RSS than Content Syndication with RSS (which ought to be called "RSS Programming using Perl"). I wish there had been more coverage of the creative commons license and Friend of a friend.
At 300 pages, the book was a good length. I wish there had been more of the first and third sections and less of the middle section. I feel I got my money's worth as a complete RDF newbie, but I wonder if the book would provide as much value someone who already has the basics of RDF down. I can't answer that, but I can say that if you want a thorough introduction to RDF concepts, this book is great.
Practical RDF Review, September 08 2003
Rating:
Submitted by Manish Hatwalne
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The book "Practical RDF" is a very good way to get familiar with the elite, lesser known but powerful Resource Derscription Framework. The subject of the book is high tech, and it helps (or rather it is required) if you have a very good understanding of XML. The first chapter itself is very awe-inspiring and gives you a glimpse of things to come. The author presents this awesome technology with comfort, but the book still remains a little dificult to understand. Mozilla example is well illustrated. The second half of the book is much easier to understand and presnts various commercial, non-commercial applications of RDF. In a nutshell, a very good book for a niche audience.
Practical RDF Review, August 25 2003
Rating:
Submitted by Saiful Islam
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I find this book helpful for my research work. Specially, chapter eight clears my idea about Jena, a Java API for RDF parsing and storage. Jena documentation and examples are not complete and sometimes not upgraded. Like, writer.setNSPrefix() method has changed in Jena 2 API, but nowhere you will find the corrected replacement. Finally, I found it in shelly's web site to use
model.getGraph().getPrefixMapping().setNsPrefix("prefix","namespace" );
I must say its a good book for those who are dealing with RDF, vocabulary, semantic web.
Media reviews
"If you are looking at implementing RDF, this practical book will help you along."
--Deborah Lynne Wiley, Online, February 2004
