RDF hacking for fun and profit -- Bill de hÓra
"I find 4Suite to be stable software (tho' I'm not sure the RDF stuff is active anymore"
The main limitation with RDF in 4Suite is that it has not not been tracking the latest specs. This sucks, but it reflects the reality of "it works, and grand updates don't scratch anyone's itch". 4Suite's RDF library is actually very stable, and has been accumulating bug fixes, performance fixes and new drivers.
I'd say that 4RDF is fine if you don't need all the nuances of the new specs (which are modest enough). It is heavily used, which is one nice test of its suitability. We do have grand post-1.0 plans, but they are not yet set in stone. My guess is the following:
- We'll abandon our own parser for rdflib. That parser is SAX-based, has been tracking the latest specs, and is very well tested. This is actually something we and the rdflib folks have been discussing near forever. We just haven't got around to the actual work (itch scratching need and all that).
- We'll make the low-level API more Pythonesque. Developments such as iterators and generators have come since the original 4RDF effort, and we want to put them to good use.
- We'll work in a Versa 2.0 (RDF query language). SPARQL is not doing it for me, and for a lot of my colleagues and corresponents. OK. I'll be blunt. I think SPARQL sucks, and I'm likely to support W3C XML Schema before I support it (hint: earthworms will fly of their own locomotion before either event).
"Uche et al have been working on anobind most recently)..."
Well, that's just me, no et alii so far. And Anobind is no more. It has been absorbed into Amara XML Toolkit. I'm developing Amara in order to complement 4Suite, not to supplant it in any way. It's an add-on to 4Suite that gives Pythoneers the super-friendly idioms they like. I still put into 4Suite about as much effort as I do Amara.
One shouldn't make any assumptions on 4Suite development based on Amara.