CHOICE magazine recently asked me to review a book and published my review in their August, 2011 issue. For those who do not have ready access, I provide a copy of my review below.
Yu, Liyang. A developer’s guide to the semantic Web. Springer, 2011. 608p index afp ISBN 9783642159695, $89.95
“As the title suggests, this book is about the semantic Web, the standards and technologies that allow computers to understand the meaning of information posted online. Yu (Delta Air Lines) provides detailed discussions of core standards (e.g., RDF, OWL, SPARQL, microformats, GRDDL) along with working examples in chapters 1-6. Chapters 7-11 provide in-depth presentations of applications such as FOAF, semantic Wiki, SearchMonkey, Rich Snippets, and others to help readers understand the potential of these applications. Chapters 12-15 review three different applications that are created in a step-by-step approach. The book contains numerous illustrations and code examples to facilitate an understanding of the concepts presented. There are minor errors (e.g., Milwaukee is not a city in Illinois) and misspelled acronyms (e.g., SPRAQL instead of SPARQL) throughout. Although this book covers numerous aspects of the semantic Web in significant detail, it is odd that there is no mention of HTML5 since HTML5 should greatly assist in the realization of the semantic Web (even though it is not yet a W3C recommendation). This book is primarily intended for software developers, researchers, and practicing professionals who want to gain expertise in the fundamentals quickly. It may also be useful for students taking courses on the semantic Web. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals/practitioners.”
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