Sparql rocks. But have you actually tried to write Sparql queries?

In good old SQL one would always have a schema as a reference, if nothing else. One  can list tables, quickly show their content etc. The fact that data is grouped in tables also lower the number of joins.

RDF is great and requires no upfront schema, but on the other hand.. you have no schema to refer to, no tables to list and explore to understand the data.

In general you get.. a white editbox in which one is supposed to guess classes, properties that are associated to them but more than that .. properties that actually are present in the given dataset (or you’d get 0 results).

This in fact has been a problem also for others dealing with large amounts of freely structured data (e.g. Freebase and their impressive assisted editor) but still notably missing in the RDF/SPARQL world.

Born out of our frustration for the situation (which in our opinion is a serious problem for semantic tools as a whole) and from our work on large scale RDF analysis, we’re happy to introduce today SparQLed, an editor providing syntax+data support in writing Sparql queries.

SparQLed uses RDF “graph summaries” and the entire query context analysis to provide data assistance, autocompletion, smart ranking of classes and properties when suggesting.  RDF Graph summaries can be computed either directly by SparQLed, itself using the same endpoint it is will run the query on or in the clouds using an hadoop functionality (for large datasets/slow sparql endpoints). To learn much more about the underlying technology (the RDF Graph Summary that powers the suggestions) developed at DERI you might want to read and refer to [1].

Our hopes are that by donating this code as open source (AGPL for now, Apache likely soon) we can kickstart a nice community that would ultimately make working with RDF and semantic data much easier than it is today.

We sincerely look forward to suggestions and contributions that might help this happening

References:

• The scientific article about aspects of the RDF Graph Summary and some of the operations in the editor:

[1] Stephane Campinas, Thomas E. Perry, Diego Ceccarelli, Renaud Delbru and Giovanni Tummarello. Introducing RDF Graph Summary With Application to Assisted SPARQL Formulation. WebS, DEXA workshop, 2012.

Ok so if you’re at Semtech you will certainly see us at our booth. But it might be interesting also to hear what other people are saying of our technology.

So here are some presentations you migth want to attend

- TUESDAY at 10:30 Alan Yagoda (Elsevier) – Smart Content Drives Smart Applications, The Future of Using Knowledge In Healthcare   (powered by CloudSpace)

- WEDNESDAY at 1:45 Hans Constandt (Eli Lilly)  A Faceted Browser for Drug Discovery: Integrating & querying large data volumes (showcasing PivotBrowser among others)

Our own presentations

-Tuesday 12:30 – SemTech Startup Competition

-Tuesday 15:45 – Giovanni Tummarello (SindiceTech) Real Time Semantic Warehousing: Sindice.com technology for the enterprise (A bit of everything)

Cu soon

Hi, so, time left is just 3 days but the todo list for our Semtech participation does indeed appear manageable now (yes also counting on a full 7h laptop battery on the flight).

We received the pop up stand today and mounted it, we’re pretty pleased. If you’re wondering how to spot us at SemTech, here it is:

Then it is also the case that if you’re reading this then the blog is working and the website went live. Joy! time to sleep now.

Lots more coming in the next few days.