Section for differences and advantages compared to other technologies

aaronAB1993 commented 4 years ago

I frequently asked myself in which sense osp-core is different to other (semantic) technologies out there. For example, neo4j + ontologies: here and here, RDF, etc.. It is a difficult topic to grasp and it takes quite some time to digest the small differences. In addition, it is hard to relate them to the big picture.

Those are discussions that pop up quite often, especially with externals or new team members (like me). It would be very beneficial for the whole project if we could refer to a documentation section where common similar applications are compared to osp-core (RDF, neo4j, ...). At the same time, we could point out the advantages of osp-core. Note that such a documentation should be "for dummies", i.e. we should keep it as easy as possible to follow.

A first step would be to gather all technologies that we consider "similar" and work out the differences. There was already a first try packed in an issue: https://github.com/simphony/osp-core/issues/332

yoavnash commented 4 years ago

Here are some points that already came up in previous discussions:

Comparison of OSP-core to neo4j + neosemantics

neo4j + ontology (neosemantics) = database for semantic data. I.e., a software that stores data items in a way the support an ontology and related tools
OSP-core = an ontology-based data-exchange framework. I.e., the emphasize is on the interoperability and mobility of data, rather than the storing of it.

Advantages of OSP-core:

Interactivity with the data (data creation/manipulation, queries).
Additional modules that reduce development effort for common tasks (e.g., transport session, dsms session, metadata extension).
The wrapper mechanism that once developed can be used to exchange data via a uniform interface.

Comparison of CUDS to RDF

Ultimately RDF is just a data format (true?), whereas a CUDS object also has an API (get, add, etc.)

Comparison of OSP-core to Owlready2

OSP-core is static with respect to the ontology whereas Owlready2 is dynamic (e.g., new ontology concepts can be added on the fly). (disadvantage for OSP-core?)
OSP-core has the transport session for transferring selected data items. Authentication is a built-in feature.

Comparison of OSP-core to Wikibase

(to be completed. See here)

urbanmatthias commented 4 years ago

As I see it:

owlready is a tool to create and manipulate ontologies with python code. And you use it to store ontology compliant data in sqlite. And they also have a reasoner (hermit) built in. --> OSP core cannot manipulate the ontology. OSP core has the wrapper mechanism, that allows to connect any database and even simulation engines. The reasoner they ship takes hours on emmo - even without data.
neo4/neosemantics is a database, so in that sense more similar to SQL database. We could (and probably should) have a neo4j wrapper to store cuds objects in neo4j.
RDF is a data model, without api.

urbanmatthias commented 4 years ago

There is also OWLAPI and Apache Jena for java, in case someone wants compare osp-core with those. I think both of them are similar to owlready2.

yoavnash commented 4 years ago

See here a comparison between AiiDA and OSP-core (credit to @mathias-driesse): https://www.notion.so/Comparison-of-osp-and-AiiDA-c674c8f7040e46f49bf9dff2b3975760

simphony / docs