Semantic Web Tutorial Using N3 (original) (raw)

This is an introduction to Semantic Web ideas aimed at someone with experience in programming, perhaps with Web sites and scripting, who wants to understand how RDF is useful in practice. The aim is to give a feel for what the Semantic Web is, and allow one to imagine what life will be like when it is widely deployed. This is illustrated using the N3 language, which is easy to read and write, and <cwm> which is an experimental general purpose program for semantic web stuff.

This material was presented as a full day tutorial at WWW2003 in Budapest, 2003-05. We're preparing to give it as a half-day tutorial at WWW2004.

For follow-up discussion, see the cwm mailing lists, rdfig weblog, ESW wiki, and rdfig chat channel, and various mailing lists.

The material in these notes may be deeper in parts than the tutorial itself.

1. Writing data (using Statements, URIs, and Vocabularies)
   • Primer: Getting into RDF & Semantic Web using N3 (slides)
   • Sidebar: Comparing with other data formats (slides)
   • Sidebar: Installing cwm (Install it during the break) (slides)
   • Sidebar: Cwm command line arguments (slides)
2. More Syntactic Sugar, More Ontological Power
   • Shorthand: Paths and Lists (slides)
   • Vocabulary documentation (slides)
   • Writing rules, Processing RDF data using rules (slides)
3. Procesing data with cwm/n3
   • Built-in functions in rules
   • Sidebar: List of built-in functions in cwm
   • Sidebar: Comparing with other rules systems
4. Semantics + Web = Semantic Web
   • Reaching out into the Web (slides)
   • Integration Example: travel tools (slides)
   • Integration Example: (slides)

Not covered in this tutorial

• more-than-horn expresivity (open disjunction & negation)
• existentials in rule consequent ("every person has a father, who is a person."). point this out as dangerous? point it out as turing complete?
• datatype usage

The tutorial should have explained somewhere - TIPS

• Tip: try not to get it to create two bNodes that you know are the same thing
• Note that the same things may be identified by many URIs
• Any idea I have I can give a URI to and actually make a web page which puts that idea on the Semantic Web.
• Do things in N3 where rules may be reusable, if just a program, use Python. (etc ;-)
• Declare things as OWL classes if they are, not RDFS classes

TimBL, Sandro, and DanC Revision:1.65Revision: 1.65 Revision:1.65 of Date:2004/05/1618:48:15Date: 2004/05/16 18:48:15 Date:2004/05/1618:48:15 by Author:connollyAuthor: connolly Author:connolly