Comments on: Exhaustion with RDF

By: Phil Wilson

Phil Wilson — Mon, 15 Aug 2005 10:23:43 +0000

You’ve been a great source of inspiration for just getting stuff working (your nokia/python work in particular has been great); take a break and just do what makes you happy.

In other news, at Open Tech 2005 an Amazon representative said that they’d be opening up IMDB with an API in the near future, so something to watch there.

By: Ryan Hayes

Ryan Hayes — Sat, 23 Jul 2005 14:40:21 +0000

I think this may be a good thing. Case and point: Glenn Gould recorded J.S. Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” in 1955, then 26 yrs. later in 1981 Glenn recorded them again, with surprising results. Sometimes you have to take a break and when you’re ready revisit material. Outside inspiration will help.

By: karl

karl — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 22:40:09 +0000

I wonder if there could be a way to convince IMDB to open up a bit more ala BBC, Google, Flickr, Amazon.

code.imdb.com would be a good idea.

And they could benefit of the support of the community, maybe that would be worthwhile to try to convince them.

By: kasei

kasei — Thu, 23 Jun 2005 21:46:11 +0000

Your work in this space has been tremendous. It’s been great watching you tear through some of these projects… often awe-inspiring how you pull together a bunch of code and functionality and get something that just works. Anyway, I hope you find something truly enjoyable to spend your time on, and hope you’ll come back to RDF at some point.

And when you move to Cambridge, it’d be great to hear from you, and possibly meet up some time. I’m in Providence now, but find myself in So. Mass. on a regular basis, so not too far from the Boston area.

Best of luck!

By: Shelley

Shelley — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 13:18:08 +0000

Ouch, I hear you. I think we’re not particularly good about encouraging each other in our work–especially in the US. This is particularly noticeable when compared with all the hooplah and excitement and jumping up and down associated with microformats. But you know, microformats can only go so far; the proponents have to jump up and down, the technology certainly doesn’t.

As for the RDF work, yes, the spotlight falls on the academics. But it is the work of the small groups or the individual, out in the field, that will make a difference. I really liked what Rich said: it is the pushing triples around in the long run that will crack open doors.

Hang in, enjoy your break, and good luck with your job hunt.

By: Danny

Danny — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 11:28:08 +0000

I’ll try and respond more fully later, but quick comments: if you feel like a break, almost certainly the best thing to do is have one. (14 hour work days? You probably need a break there too!)

re. “Nothing I’m doing is particularly innovative or interesting” - nothing could be farther from the truth!! You’ve been continually making interesting use of the technologies. The word “innovation” isn’t very good when one is building on a stack, but in this space any implementation is innovation - and you’ve done plenty of that.

By: Rich

Rich — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 10:39:31 +0000

Wow, that sounded despondent.

I do get what you’re saying, though — things can be quite demotivating at times, and it’s disheartening to see people just not getting it, so you feel as if you’re talking to a brick wall.

Sometimes I feel like going to write an app in Java, using databases and XML, just like everyone else.

I wouldn’t say that what you do isn’t interesting — you’re doing front-line coding, and that has just as much value as academic projects. After all, it’s pushing triples around that’s important in the long run…

Take a break. You do sound like you need one.

By: Benjamin Nowack

Benjamin Nowack — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 07:51:28 +0000

Yeah, I know what you mean, Chris. Even from RDFers you usually don’t get much feedback. Maybe working with RDF requires too much focus and swapping in of so many specs that noone is still able to look at other people’s stuff
(Not that I’m a fan of Flash anymore, but I remember when it was new, no matter how simple a movie was, you could be sure that almost every Flasher had a look at it and if something was cool, it was spread in hours.)
Unfortunately, semantics aren’t that obvious, it’ll take more time to promote their utility (maybe more time -and thus money- than I can spend myself).
However, you’ve done lots of cool SemWeb stuff, and you’ve also shown that great apps can already be created by utilizing existing toolkits. I hope you’ll find time and motivation to continue working on RDF tech again. We’re all quite early in the game, but I still hope it’ll pay off..
And good luck for the job seek, hey, maybe it’s going to be a Semantic Web start-up..

By: Christoph Görn

Christoph Görn — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 06:45:39 +0000

Heya, hope you find the time to play arround in any topic… your Python/Nokia hacks have always been interessting too Good luck finding a job and doing the move. [GNU]