Raw

Last night, after finding out that part of the G+ API had gone public I skimmed their docs and the docs of some of the specs they draw on: Portable Contacts, Activity Streams and OAuth 2.0. Of course it's great that G+ is exposing an API, and great that they're drawing on existing standards. But after looking at those standards I came away shaking my head, feeling rather discouraged. Again and again they contain data expressed use JSON mappings like "kind": "plus#person" (G+ API) and "objectType" : "person" (Activity Streams) and "" (Portable Contacts assumes that if you've got data you're looking at contacts). Aside from the variation in the naming across these, there's a common theme, the assumption that a simple token (like "person") is adequate for definition of something on the Web. How do you know that their definition of "person" is compatible with your system's definition of "person"? Sure, there are the spec docs to back them up, but how do you get from the data to the spec docs? Ok, there's openness in the publication and dev of these specs and standardization to the extent that they're high-profile enough that vendors like Google will see them and adopt them. But in their technical detail they have more in common with pre-Web, offline proprietary formats - "person" means person because we say so, and everybody knows what we mean.

Digging a bit deeper there's reference to the Discovery Protocol Stack which draws on XRD (the OASIS spec for describing resources) and Web Linking (RFC 5988 for defining typed links). Here there's more of an attempt to make the stuff Web-friendly, entities (resources) and relations (links) are identified with URLs so Web-based discovery of further information is in principle possible. But the "One True Ontology" registry-based approach of Web Linking is questionable in a distributed environment (and comparable to schema.org).

The description of things using schema like "kind": "plus#person" looks like what RDF does, except rather than using a Web-based approach to naming (so you could derive a URL from "plus#person", look it up and find out what it means) instead we see ad hoc token-based naming schemes. With Web Linking we have something that corresponds exactly with RDF properties (they are typed links), and if you can look things up in a registry then that's a step in the right direction. We already use registries to decode the meaning of terms in other major vocabularies - e.g. the HTTP media types through which HTML is delivered lead you to the definitions of terms like "strong" in the relevant specs. But is a registry appropriate for every term we're ever going to use? Does a word like "strong" only have one meaning?

Ok, so far there's a phrase which sums up all this: Cargo Cult RDF

But the theory is that grassroots, use case-driven development will tend to create cowpaths in the environmnent, and all standards orgs have to do is pave these. Except it doesn't seem to quite work that way. On the one hand we have the XKCD Standards effect (check the first paragraph on the Portable Contacts page), on the other hand the simple fact that, even with the best will in the world and with good information, people often get things wrong. Take for example:

OAuth [1.0] aims to unify the experience and implementation of delegated web service authentication into a single, community-driven protocol.

[time passes]

OAuth 2.0 is a completely new protocol and is not backwards compatible with previous versions....As more sites started using OAuth, especially Twitter, developers realized that the single flow offered by OAuth was very limited and often produced poor user experiences...OAuth 1.0 was largely based on two existing proprietary protocols: Flickr’s API Auth and Google’s AuthSub. The result represented the best solution based on actual implementation experience. (Introducing OAuth 2.0)

So...even when good, informed standardization is aimed for, flawed technologies built with flawed processes are unavoidable.

But these things are so popular! Vendors and developers can't get enough of this kind of stuff. It's a continuous stream: XML APIs become JSON APIs, microformats become microdata, but the same patterns are repeated again and again.

Years of these developments passing RDF by. Plan A : The Semantic Web still seems as far in the future as it did 5, 10 years ago. The RDF technologies demonstrably work, and adoption is growing, but it's hardly viral. However you look at it, the world of trendy new specs repeatedly steers around that fact. What's a jaded RDF enthusiast to do? Here's what I recommend:

Exploit the situation!

With a continuous flow of different specs that each covers some little part of data on the Web, focusing on any specific development can only work in the short term. A strategy based on technologies that support flexibility and agility, using known best practices of the truly distributed Web is the best option in the long term, so that systems can be rapidly adapted to meet any new requirements. It doesn't matter that e.g. schema.org misses the point, the data is still useful. "Think globally, act locally" is a great expression - in this context it could mean accept whatever the world of Web 2.0+ has to offer, but handle it on your own terms.

In practice, let's say you're developing a system for a particular vertical market: dog leads (I'm getting serious hints as I type). Don't build the system from scratch based on what people in the dog lead market are doing, don't tie yourself to domain-specific schema or protocols. Wherever possible use commodity, off-the-shelf tools. Then if dog leads take a nose dive on the international market you can regroup with a different target - cowbells for cats - using the same tools, and same skill set. The only parts that need change are at the edges. Basically RDF technologies offer a long-term commercial advantage.

Comments to G+ please.

I have a problem with the Semantic Web right now. We have plenty of solid specs (and SPARQL 1.1 as it's evolving). We have a lot of data online. The browser is getting smarter. Maybe it's because I don't trust myself with mobile devices, but I'm somehow missing the benefits all this should provide. The social side, which did seem to be doing very well with blogs and people setting up their own sites seems to have disappeared up a cul-de-sac with Twitter and Facebook. This morning I'd have liked to have found a hay fever remedy online, and been able to contact some local drug suppliers to stop me sneezing. It seems like we are all playing with toy projects and can't grow up (yes, I'm still working on my Turtle editor). I'm aware there's a huge amount of pharmaceutical data online, but to stop my sneezing the best bet still seems to be Wikipedia followed up with personal visits to medics. I expect, no *demand* more from the technology, but right now it all seems a bit Dark Ages. We have moved closer to the Bazaar model over Cathedrals, but that just seems to mean people have an excuse to be sloppy (it's open source so it's not my problem any more). About say 5 years ago there was inspirational stuff coming from academia, now it seems to have dried up into poor mimic of the commercial world. I've no real specific idea what is needed right now, but I suspect it looks a lot like a big kick up the backside.