Finally!

It came to me like a “oh my god” moment today! I know what my thesis will be about. The semantic web. Specifically, Semantic Web Services. This is why i chose the topic to pursue, yea i know the topic is still too broad but at least I have an understanding what im finally doing and why.

This is how it came about. I was given a task at work, its a prototype application using Flex and AIR and I started to look into how these particular technologies work with XML and web services. I started to look into RDF parsing and found that there is no clear RDF or OWL parser for Action Script 3, that got me thinking and soon had me looking over my class notes on the subject. That then brought me to where im at now, how these technologies work with web services.

The technology to work with web services isnt that difficult but the technology to have web services find each other to facilitate each others needs captures my attention. The underlining idea of self discovery on the computational level is interesting. How can you have a program locate and basically build itself to accomplish a task? In other words, how can one person locate two people across town, that dont know each but posses skills to complete a task, come together? Before the advent of the web, we used the phone book now we do a quick google search. This is the idea behind the semantic web service, from what i’ve gathered so far. (I might retract after i read a bit more on the subject)

Im going to focus on, first the technology RDF, OWL, see whats currently available and working in production, then im going to focus my attention on roadmaps on how to set up a very simple semantic web service (when i mean simple i mean simple). Finally im going to look at soa type of set ups for sws. (this roadmap might change dramatically as i start to dig deeper. Ill keep the Research section updated with my findind though and ill wrap up all the research related tutorials ive started aswell soon.)

Armando Padilla