[Mulgara-general] OWL API support for Mulgara

[Andrae Muys]

On 27/11/2007, at 9:55 AM, David Legg wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I notice on the email archive [1] that there was some discussion of  
> supporting OWLAPI.  Unfortunately, I didn't receive these emails  
> directly.  I remember Paul Gearon mentioning he hadn't received  
> anything either but I just thought the list was quiet as usual ;-)
>
> I gather from those messages that support for OWLAPI is on the  
> cards and that's great.  Like Webster mentioned in his initial  
> message OWLAPI has been getting a lot of support lately from the  
> likes of Protege 4, Pellet and Swoop.
>
> I'm only just starting to use OWLAPI but it shows a lot of  
> promise.  My only concern so far is how efficiently the API could  
> be implemented over a remote server.  With SPARQL you can bundle up  
> a complex query in a single package and let Mulgara handle the best  
> way to execute it but with OWLAPI I can't see how you can do the  
> same thing.

I have only a cursory understanding of OWLAPI derived from 10 minutes  
looking at the code examples.  Basic operations should be fine as we  
should be able to batch them reasonably well.  However you are right,  
we do appear to have a problem the moment we start doing anything  
mildly complicated - ie. around the same time we reach 'Example 5' on  
the site (http://owlapi.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/owlapi/owl1_1/ 
trunk/examples/src/main/java/org/coode/owlapi/examples/Example5.java? 
view=markup).

The choice to use a class-hierarchy rather than type-constructors is  
going to hurt us.  Even with the use of class-based API we might  
still have been able to work around it, except they've mandated the  
visitor pattern which I suspect will seal our fate.

Granted this is all speculation on the basis of 10 minutes browsing,  
but it's an informed 10 minutes :).  I see a combination of class- 
hierarchies, the visitor pattern, and external-iteration; if it is  
even possible, it is going to be an absolute bastard to get this  
combination of features to scale well.

Andrae

-- 
Andrae Muys
andrae at netymon.com
Senior RDF/SemanticWeb Consultant
Netymon Pty Ltd