Skip to Content
Learning SPARQL, 2nd Edition
book

Learning SPARQL, 2nd Edition

by Bob DuCharme
July 2013
Beginner
386 pages
10h 33m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Learning SPARQL, 2nd Edition

Chapter 2. The Semantic Web, RDF, and Linked Data (and SPARQL)

The SPARQL query language is for data that follows a particular model, but the semantic web isn’t about the query language or about the model—it’s about the data. The booming amount of data becoming available on the semantic web is making great new kinds of applications possible, and as a well-implemented, mature standard designed with the semantic web in mind, SPARQL is the best way to get that data and put it to work in your applications.

Note

The flexibility of the RDF data model means that it’s being used more and more with projects that have nothing to do with the “semantic web” other than their use of technology that uses these standards—that’s why you’ll often see references to “semantic web technology.”

What Exactly Is the “Semantic Web”?

As excitement over the semantic web grows, some vendors use the phrase to sell products with strong connections to the ideas behind the semantic web, and others use it to sell products with weaker connections. This can be confusing for people trying to understand the semantic web landscape.

I like to define the semantic web as a set of standards and best practices for sharing data and the semantics of that data over the Web for use by applications. Let’s look at this definition one or two phrases at a time, and then we’ll look at these issues in more detail.

A set of standards

Before Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, more powerful hypertext systems were available, but he ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Learning React, 2nd Edition

Learning React, 2nd Edition

Alex Banks, Eve Porcello
Learning Spark, 2nd Edition

Learning Spark, 2nd Edition

Jules S. Damji, Brooke Wenig, Tathagata Das, Denny Lee
Learning GraphQL

Learning GraphQL

Eve Porcello, Alex Banks

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781449371449Errata Page