SPARQL Via HTTP Methods

Querying the web might get a bit easier, with the union of SPARQL directly with HTTP. TripleSoup, a promising proposal at Apache, aims to expose Triple Stores (RDF databases) directly via HTTP.

This reminds me of URIQA, which is an effort to provide native HTTP methods for accessing metadata about a certain resource. URIQA was interesting because it allows you to say

MGET /foo HTTP/1.1

which means "Retrieve the metadata for resource `/foo`"

It looks like TripleSoup is a bit different, in that the URI in the request methods is some type of application. TripleSoup seems to be a gateway directly into the triple store, whereas URIQA masks the concept of talking to the triple store. In URIQA, it looks like the triple store *is* the server you are connecting to. With TripleSoup, the triple store is located at the URI you are sending requests to.

URIQA's advantage is that you don't need to know the URI to the application or triple store, you can just send an MGET to the resource. Of course, URIQA doesn't handle queries with SPARQL.

My first question with TripleSoup is, how would I discover the URI that I can use for querying? It's the same problem that URIQA tries to solve, "I know the URI for the resource, but I want to get its metadata." I can ask that question in SPARQL, but who do I ask?

Best of luck to the TripleSoup team, really looking forward to the code.

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