Semantic Web Programming [Paperback]

John Hebeler (Author), Matthew Fisher (Author), Ryan Blace (Author), Andrew Perez-Lopez (Author), Mike Dean (Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 047041801X | ISBN-13: 978-0470418017 | Publication Date: April 13, 2009 | Edition: 1

The next major advance in the Web?Web 3.0?will be built on semantic Web technologies, which will allow data to be shared and reused across application, enterprise, and community boundaries. Written by a team of highly experienced Web developers, this book explains examines how this powerful new technology can unify and fully leverage the ever-growing data, information, and services that are available on the Internet. Helpful examples demonstrate how to use the semantic Web to solve practical, real-world problems while you take a look at the set of design principles, collaborative working groups, and technologies that form the semantic Web. The companion Web site features full code, as well as a reference section, a FAQ section, a discussion forum, and a semantic blog.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Go beyond the basics to build practical, real-world Semantic Web applications

The Semantic Web offers a revolutionary and powerful way to build intelligent software applications that take advantage of the information and services that exist on the Web, as well as within the enterprise. The Semantic Web delivers on the promise of "Web 3.0" — facilitating automated data integration, processing, and reasoning.

This author team of Semantic Web professionals shows how to apply Semantic Web technologies to build practical, real-world applications and to solve real-world problems. The authors provide a generous supply of working code examples showing how to put concepts into practice.

They fully cover such key technologies as Microformats, Resource Description Framework (RDF), RDF Schema (RDFS), the Web Ontology Language (OWL), Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL), SPARQL Protocol and RDF Query Language (SPARQL).

In addition, Semantic Web Programming covers:

• Semantic Web architectures, tools, and best practices

• Ways in which knowledge representation and application integration drive a Semantic Web application

• The methods that integrate, align, and output data and information in many formats and locations

• A look into the future of the Semantic Web, including advanced integration and distribution, advanced reasoning, visualization, and more

• A detailed look into the burgeoning OWL 2 W3C Recommendations and how they will affect and improve your software architectures

• An extensive Semantic Web application that ingests data from many sources include Facebook, mySQL®, Jabber, and others, aligns and unifies the information, queries across the unified information and then exports to various formats

The companion Web site offers access to all related articles, complete code examples, an active blog and wiki, and any book or code updates.

Visit our website at www.wiley.com/compbooks/

Visit the companion website at www.wiley.com/go/semanticwebprogramming

About the Author

John Hebeler has more than two decades of large-scale software development experience. Matt Fisher has more than fifteen years in software and systems development. Ryan Blace is a Semantic Web developer and has worked on multiple large-scale Semantic Web-based knowledge management systems. Andrew Perez-Lopez is a software developer with several years of experience with Semantic Web information systems.

Product Details

• Paperback: 648 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (April 13, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047041801X
• ISBN-13: 978-0470418017
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #268,924 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Broad coverage and lots of code examples, August 29, 2009

By 

Techie Evan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Semantic Web Programming (Paperback)

This book will help you acquire knowledge or skills in: the Semantic Web approach to Information Modeling, the use of rules to augment such models when needed, where to find data sets already formatted for Semantic Web usage or ontologies that you could adapt for your application if you don't want to create one from scratch, how to interrogate the Semantic Web using special browsers or browser plugins, search engines, or a query language such as SPARQL, how to use an open-source tool such as Protege from Stanford University to create Semantic Web Information Models, an open-source reasoning engine like Pellet for making inferences flowing from your data sets, and an open-source development framework like Jena from Hewlett Packard for creating Semantic Web applications.

This is not the only book written for software developers but it is the best available so far, especially if you are a Java Developer. Toby Segaran et al's "Programming the Semantic Web" uses Python as the main programming language and has more limited coverage of Semantic Web topics. Both books, however, are quite readable even if you are not a programmer. If you're really looking to learn just the concepts, however, you might want to consider "A Semantic Web Primer 2nd Edition" by Grigoris Antoniou and Frank van Harmelen, or "Introduction to the Semantic Web and Semantic Web Services" by Liyang Yu, instead.

I like this book very much not only because it is very well-written and thought out, but also for its up-to-date and broad coverage. It covers Version 2 of the Web Ontology Language used for Information Modeling, so new features such as property chains, keys, and custom data types are discussed. It has a good tutorial on SPARQL, and the chapter on Patterns and Best Practices include architectural recommendations and useful tips for managing URIs and annotations. It provides references to important concept papers, and to popular open-source and commercial tools.

I do hope that future editions of this book will include: more concrete discussions of the challenges involved in modeling and using Semantic Web data due to the paradigm's adherence to the Open World rather than the Closed World Assumption, and recommendations on potential approaches to model versioning and addressing security concerns such as role-based viewing of Semantic Web data. Overall, however, an excellent book!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brought me from clueless to confident in a month, September 17, 2009

By 

mdkid123 (Silicon Valley, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Semantic Web Programming (Paperback)

I was tasked earlier in the year with investigating ontologies and semantic web technologies, with the expectation of producing a working application (demo) by the year's end (for a mobile R&D group). I spent a few months reading white papers as well as a book "Semantic Web for the Working Ontologist". Neither was of much use to an absolute novice. Luckily, my manager dropped this book off on my desk in July, which was an absolute godsend. Over the next month or so, I worked my way through all of the well-written chapters and example code. It took a while, but I am now confident with my work tasks ahead. I could not say that at the beginning of July. If you devote the time, I'm positive that you'll get a firm grasp of the subject matter.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Semantic Web Book to Date, January 18, 2010

By 

Christopher Troilo "John Preston" (Auckland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Semantic Web Programming (Paperback)

As a programmer, it's sometimes frustrating to consistently books written in research/ academic vernacular when you are trying to enhance your knowledge base from a functional standpoint. Semantic Web Programming was recommended to me by someone who swore it was the "real deal", as it were. I have to admit, I was dubious, since many of the other books "written for programmers" were either far too basic, or far too based in theory rather than practicality. I am extremely pleased to report that Semantic Web Programming is precisely what it claims to - an excellent tool for learning semantic web with the programmer in mind. I can't recommend this book enough, quite frankly, and found it to be an excellent purchase.