To build software that supports OSLC, you should be familiar with the following concepts:
Linked data
Linked data is the main technical foundation of all of our specifications. The video below provides a brief overview of the value of linked data and how we implement it with OSLC:
If you're new to linked data and RDF, we've put together a playlist of videos that can help you catch up.
RESTful web architecture and HTTP
You should be familiar with designing RESTful applications.
For a quick primer, we recommend “Learn REST” by Dr. M. Elkstein, particularly these sections:
- What is REST?
- REST as Lightweight Web Services
- How Simple is REST?
- More Complex REST Requests
- REST Server Responses
For OSLC implementations, you must use HTTP protocol.
RDF, Turtle, JSON, and HTML
We require services and resources to be represented in RDF, but you might prefer to supplement that with a variety of machine-readable and human-readable formats like Turtle, JSON, or HTML.
Instead of string parsing and regular expressions, you will definitely want to explore using an RDF parser such as Apache Jena.
OAuth
OSLC does not require OAuth, but it is the most common approach for managing authentication between clients.