Customer Reviews

Practical RDF

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There's a lot of information in this book, and there's really no alternative source for much of it. The RDF spec kept changing while this book was being written, which accounts for how some of the inconsistencies and inaccuracies got into the text.

However, it wasn't proofreading that should have caught these problems but the technical reviewers. They flat fell down on the job. On page 20, for instance, the text says that "in all instances of RDF graphs I've seen, [the direction of the arrows] is from right to left." Right below it, and in all the graphs in the book and in all RDF graphs that _I_ have seen, they point from left to right.

Or on page 41, the text says "a blank node is represented by an oval (it is a resource)" and in all the book's figures, blank nodes are represented by rectangles. Many other such maddening inconsistencies occur between the text and the figures and examples, which frustrates someone trying to learn what's going on.

Every writer gets some things wrong, and it's up to the publisher and its tech review to catch and correct them. Powers may have written uninspiredly and slipped up in her revising, but it's O'Reilly and the four people who provided technical review that is more at fault for the problems.

Normally, I like O'Reilly books. I've probably bought over 50 of them over the years. This one, however, is not up to their usual standards. While the subject, RDF, is interesting and I feel that the pace and content of the book are good. I find that there are so many typographical errors in the book - at least in the copy that I have - that it takes more effort to figure out what it is that the author means, as opposed to what the text is actually saying, than it's worth. There are places where the text contains contradictions, there are places where the examples are incorrect, and there are places where the information presented is downright wrong. I do not feel that the fault is solely the author's, nor do I feel that the fault lies solely with O'Reilly's editors. But what could have been a good, informative book has been brought low by a lack of proofreading.

If you're really interested in RDF, you may well do better by going to the W3C web site and reading the specifications there than by reading this book.

I bought this book because I would to have a printed source of information to RDF concepts and syntax. Also, I hoped to see some examples and ideas of RDF applications beyound of the (in)famous Semantic Web.

My expectations were fulfilled only partially.

First, the book was somewhat difficult to read because of typos and discrepancies e.g. between RDF examples and figures of graphs that were generated from them.

Only one application of RDF is shown in good detail through the book: PostCon vocabulary/schema developed by the author herself.

RSS is covered in a separate chapter, but I would not reccomend Practical RDF for somebody who wants to get an introduction to RSS technology - version 2.0 of RSS being not RDF-based is not covered in the book.

I agree with the author that RDF technology has a huge potential, but this declaration is not proved by most of this book's examples.

Tools and applications are only described briefly in getting started guide style - I would rather go google for up-to-date version of the same info.

Also, there is little fun found reading that book. Style is rather dull - not unlike the style I use in this review, but extended to 300+ pages.

For a book about 'practical' RDF this book is mainly about theory. The book doesn't get into applications until chapter 10 and it's coverage of the RSS applications is pretty minor. However, there are some good points. The XML examples are highlighted, which makes them very easy to read. The tough subject matter, meta data about meta data, is well covered in-depth.

I gave it four stars because it is merely mis-titled. The first ten chapters do a solid job, with excellent graphics, explaining RDF. So if you are looking for an general RDF book, you have probably come to the right place. If you are looking for a book to explain why your blog's RSS doesn't validate, you shouldn't buy into the practical title, or this book.

I found the prose of this book tedious and in the way of the material. Normally I appreciate O'Reilly books because I actually sit down and read them, away from the computer, but in this case the prose does nothing to illuminate the material. For example, in the first chapter, which provides an overview of the technology (independent of its XML implementation), the author talks about a particular tool for graphically representing an RDF graph. But (1) the tool is never really introduced -- why should it be in this chapter? and (2) she writes as if the graphical views of the tool are somehow literally the RDF graphs, which are mathematical constructs. In short, the author has done none of the important work of getting to the essence of RDF and presenting it in a logical and convincing manner. The thinking behind RDF is complicated and subtle, in spite of the superficial simplicity of the technology. What I expected was a book that would provide some real explanation, rather than an exhaustive and wordy review of all the concepts in series. This is not the book.

RDF and its allied technologies (RDFs, OWL, etc.) have been evolving in fits and starts for the past several years, but the dust finally seems to be settling in RDF Land, so, months ago, when I learned that O'Reilly was going to be publishing an RDF book, I was cautiously hopeful. The very few books on the subject that had been published were sorely lacking. For the most part, the available online tutorials were sketchy at best and many seemed to have been obsoleted by developments within the W3C working groups handling the several relevant Recommendations. Although it wouldn't have taken much for Practical RDF to come out ahead of the competition, I'm happy to say that Practical RDF is far and above the best RDF/RDFS/OWL book available. It left me wanting more, wishing that the author had developed more demo RDF vocabularies and shifted the extensive (and quite good) survey of RDF software tools and utilities to the book's website, but what's there is pure gold.

This book is Practical RDF and not "Progamming with RDF (with examples)". Yes, you can find all of the information in this book by searching the Internet. The point is that your results will vary based on who you, how much time you have at your disposal, which day it is, and whether your phone is about to ring.

What Powers and the editors have done in Practical RDF is put the most relevant information (available at the time) in one place, with the typical advantages and disadvantages of a book, such as, you don't need an internet connection, it's operating system neutral, you can make notes in it, it's easy to put down and return to, etc..

I spent the last month researching RDF online. After all that work, I frankly didn't learn much from the book. However, I could have saved myself a lot of time had the book arrived at my door earlier.

We in the information business know how hard it is for our colleagues to embrace semi-new technology. Having a (or several) copy of this bookoin your bookshelf can save you loads of breath. Most people don't take well to "go do your own research." This book contains the research on RDF and is therefore indispensable for all except those who are fortunate enough to work independently.

As noted in other reviews, there are areas for improvement. The technology has advanced since 2003. The original text was probably rushed. This book is due for a second revision, perhaps with more focus on OWL and inference (e.g., take the cwm out for a spin).

For those seeking programming grit, the problem is very similar to programming with XML: which platform, language, and tools do you choose? With XML and RDF, many cross-platform tools exist (Jena, Sesame, Redland). As with most programming books, online documentation from open source tools are likely to be far more useful.

When you want to learn about a largish subject, buy a book. When you want to program, there's no substitute for writing code.

In sum, if there was a book that better educates the uninitiated to RDF, I would mention it here. But I haven't found one, and of course I'm hopeful that someone will write it. Until then, Practical RDF is the best of the pack.

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.

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.

This is a very good book on a subject that is notoriously difficult to present. It *is* a practical book, with syntax examples from the start, but by necessity there is also quite a lot of theory in the early chapters. After covering the concepts involved in RDF and RDF Schema Shelley moves on to creating vocabularies and gives good (practical) overviews of the toolkits/APIs available to the developer. The latter sections explore existing (and potential) applications. As Shelley makes clear in the introduction, there are many different ways of viewing RDF. The way she goes about it is from the point of view of someone who works with Web technologies on a daily basis, sleeves rolled up.

The writing style is fairly informal, which may not be to everyone's tastes. But I liked it, found it friendly, and think it's very helpful in this context. Rather than fudging issues Shelley is honest for example when applications don't behave as they're meant to. The occasional editorial errors are irritating, but don't really get in the way of the content.

Shelley's commitment to the subject matter and the book are not in doubt. She was brave enough to put her early drafts online for public review, and since publication has been providing maintenance material on her Practical RDF weblog. Her own practical work takes advantage of the techniques discussed in the book, check out the Burningbird blog.

The Resource Description Framework is at the heart of rapidly growing aspects of Web development, and Shelley's book provides a practical introduction. With the code, explanations and pointers to related material provided it's certainly enough for any developer to start taking advantage of RDF technologies. Whether you're looking for a good modeling approach for your application, or arrived at RDF from RSS syndication, or are interested in the Semantic Web vision, you'll get lots from this book.