The W3C’s Linked Data Working Group — which SemanticWeb is a co-sponsor of, and which we’ve discussed here and here — aims to take the programmable web to a higher level, according to a new article by Michael Vizard. Vizard writes, “The whole concept of a programmable Web may just be too important to rely solely on APIs. That’s the thinking behind a Linked Data Working Group initiative led by the W3C that expects to create a standard for embedding URLs directly within application code to more naturally integrate applications. Backed by vendors such as IBM and EMC, the core idea is to create more reliable method for integrating applications that more easily scales by not creating unnecessary dependencies of APIs and middleware.”

Vizard continues, “According to Harish Grama, vice president of product development for IBM Rational on collaborative development, the problem with APIs is that they are often difficult to create and maintain. Every time an application gets updated the APIs associated with that application are liable to break. The Linked Data Working Group is developing an alternative approach to give developers more direct control over data integration versus having to rely on services that might not actually be available at any given moment.”

Read more here.

Image: Courtesy W3C