Semantic Web Programming

Foreword

Our group at BBN Technologies has been working at the forefront of the Semantic Web since 2000, first as part of the DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) program and then in developing a variety of tools, data sets, and applications for other government and commercial customers. The authors and technical editor of this book are current or former members of this group, which has grown to about 30 employees. Semantic Web Programming reflects our backgrounds as software developers, the experience we've gained over the past eight years, and a number of hard-won insights.

The Semantic Web is an international effort to represent data (including World Wide Web data currently designed for human users) in formats amenable to automated processing, integration, and reasoning. Data is king, and it provides even greater value when it's connected with other data sources to create a linked data web. Current applications include data integration from mash-ups to the enterprise, improved search, service composition, intelligent agents, desktop and mobile applications, and collaboration.

Catalyzed by U.S. and EU research programs, the growing community includes the W3C Semantic Web Activity, a host of large and small vendors, several Semantic Web and Semantic Technology conference series, and a large number of open-source developers and projects.

While Web 3.0 is in many ways an appropriate moniker for the Semantic Web, the Semantic Web has always emphasized Web 2.0 social networking and collaboration ...