Abstract
A decade of experience with research proposals as well as standardized query languages for the conventional Web and the recent emergence o f query languages for the Semantic Web call for a reconsideration of design principles for Web and Semantic Web query languages. This article first argues that a new generation of versatile Web query languages is needed for solving the challenges posed by the changing Web: We call versatile those query lang uages able to cope with both Web and Semantic Web data expressed in any (Web or Semantic Web) markup language. This article further suggests that (well-kn own) referential transparency and (novel) answer-closedness are essential features of versatile query languages. Indeed, they allow queries to be consider ed like forms and answers like form-fillings in the spirit of the "query-by-example" paradigm. This article finally suggests that the decentralized and he terogeneous nature of the Web requires incomplete data specifications (or "incomplete queries") and incomplete data selections (or "incomplete answers"): the form-like query can be specified without precise knowledge of the queried data and answers can be restricted to contain only an excerpt of the queried data.

URL:
http://rewerse.net/publications/rewerse-publications.html#REWERSE-RP-2005-16

BibTeX:

@article{REWERSE-RP-2005-16,
	author = {Fran\c{c}ois Bry and Tim Furche and Liviu Badea and Christoph Koch and Sebastian Schaffert and Sacha Berger},
	title = {Querying the Web Reconsidered: Design Principles for Versatile Web Query Languages},
	journal = {International Journal of Semantic Web and Information Systems (IJSWIS)},
	year = {2005},
	volume = {1},
	number = {2},
	url = {http://rewerse.net/publications/rewerse-publications.html#REWERSE-RP-2005-16}
}