Abstract by David De Roure, University of Southampton, UK.
A key distinction between Grid computing and the Web is the degree of coordination of distributed computation that occurs in Grid applications. The Semantic Web has an emphasis on automated processing and thus also demands this kinds of coordination. Both promote a service-oriented model such as the Web services approach, which now features in the Grid thanks to the introduction of the Open Grid Service Architecture (OGSA) in Globus Toolkit 3 (GT3).
Water is a new language for Web Services programming. This description comes from www.waterlang.org.
Water is a dynamic language that unites the worlds of objects and Web Services in an elegant way. Water adheres to a "Learn Once, Use Everywhere" philosophy where data, logic, and presentation are manipulated and represented in a consistent way. Water is an All-Level Language because it can be used for both high-level and low-level tasks.
Water is ideally suited to Semantic Web applications. It is designed to provide a unified, homogeneous and simple platform to capture the benefits (and overcome limitations) of Web Services and XML. It provides a multiple-inheritance, prototype-based object system and supports an XML Syntax.
The language was created by Christopher Fry and Mike Plusch and was influenced by many other languages such as Scheme, Java, HTML, Lisp, Self, Smalltalk, Basic, ML, and Dylan . It is described in the book 'Spinning the Semantic Web: Bringing the World Wide Web to Its Full Potential', in the chapter "Static and Dynamic Semantics of the Web" by Christopher Fry, Mike Plusch and Henry Lieberman. There is also a book dedicated to Water called "Water: Simplified Web Services and XML Programming" by Mike Plusch. An IDE is available from Clear Methods Inc - see www.waterlang.org for further information.
In the presentation at Developer's Day we will discuss Water as a programming langauge for the Semantic Grid. We will introduce Water and show how it can be used to develop Web Services applications, then illustrate interoperability with OGSA and give examples of the application of Water to the Semantic Grid.
Web page maintained by David De Roure,