[RFC] Metadata access and storage

[Carlos Garnacho]

Hey,

On Tue, 2011-09-06 at 17:28 +0200, Anders Feder wrote:
> Den 06-09-2011 16:03, Michael Pyne skrev: 
> > On Tuesday, September 06, 2011 12:58:33 Anders Feder wrote:
> > > Yes, but these tools has been available for years now and they still are
> > > not integrated in applications (at least not on the GNOME end). How do
> > > you propose to rectify this situation (other than to say: "improve
> > > thyself!" to the developers, which clearly is not accomplishing anything)?
> > Given that there already exist GNOME-centric tools for semantic data 
> > integration (i.e. Zeitgeist) it sounds like the work needs to be done on the 
> > application end, not by inventing /another/ semantic data framework.
> Does Zeitgeist have features for integration of semantic data? I
> thought it was just a timeline of events?
> 
> > I mean let's face it, the reason the job hasn't been done yet is because the 
> > job is enormous, not simply because the correct library hasn't been invented 
> > yet. This is all not helped by the fact that most developers have zero 
> > inclination to do the extra work to describe ontologies and use semantic 
> > layers (similar in my mind to the choice between using plain text files for 
> > simple config or using a full-blown SQL database). Simply making up a 
> > different backend/semantic interface is not going to help matters unless that 
> > new interface is /significantly easier/ to develop against (and then why not 
> > just port that interface over to the existing frameworks?)
> What makes you think that the developers are willing to use the
> existing frameworks if only they were easier to use? The concerns I've
> heard over using e.g. Tracker as a backend have mainly been related to
> performance.

We at the Tracker team can't optimize concerns, for tangible stuff:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=tracker

I do agree with Aaron about SPARQL being a good standard query language,
it may have a steep learning curve, but is the perfect companion to RDF.
It is right that a simplified interface may help the casual developer
getting into semantic storage, but that's more a problem to be solved at
the API level, not the communication one.

Cheers,
  Carlos

> > Regards,
> >  - Michael Pyne
> > 
> > 
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> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Anders Feder 
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