src/content/community/articles/interviews/thesaurus-analysis.html - netbeans-website-cleanup - Git at Google

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     <title>Interview: Modular Thesaurus Analysis Software on the NetBeans Platform</title>
     <meta name="author" content="Geertjan Wielenga" />
     <meta name="description" content="Interview with Kai Eckert who develops Semtinel,
           an application framework for the semi-automatic creation, maintenance and analysis
           of hierarchical concept schemes (thesaurus, classification or ontology).
           Semtinel is built on top of the NetBeans Platform." />
     <link href="../../../netbeans.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
   </head>
   <body>

     <h1>Interview: Modular Thesaurus Analysis Software on the NetBeans Platform</h1>

     <p>Published on <a href="http://netbeans.dzone.com/thesaurus-analysis-on-netbeans-rcp">NetBeans Zone</a>
       by <em>Geertjan</em>, <em>2010/03/26</em></p>

     <p>
       <img alt="Kai Eckert"  src="../../../images_www/articles/interviews/thesaurus-analysis/7a80b96dc5.jpg" align="right" />
       <em>Kai Eckert is a subject specialist for math and
       computer science at the University Library Mannheim. He is a computer
       scientist and before his work for the library he was a researcher
       at the Chair of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Mannheim.
       During this time, he started the development of Semtinel,
       which is the subject of this interview.</em>
     </p>

     <h2>Hi Kai, what is Semtinel and how did you get started developing it?</h2>

     <p>Semtinel
       is a research prototype for the analysis of thesauri in order to
       support their semi-automatic creation, modification, and maintenance.
       Thesauri and other hierarchical concept schemes, like taxonomies, are
       widely used in the library field to classify and describe the subject
       of resources (like books). The maintenance of these thesauri is
       cumbersome and time-consuming and questions about the quality of a
       thesaurus and its suitability for a specific purpose are not easy to
       answer.
     </p><p>
       To answer such questions was my motivation to think
       about new ways for the analysis and visualisation of thesauri and
       finally to develop Semtinel.
     </p>
     <p><a href="http://netbeans.dzone.com/sites/all/files/semtinel_0.png"><img alt="Semtinel screenshot"
           src="../../../images_www/articles/interviews/thesaurus-analysis/semtinelSmaller_0.png" /></a></p>

     <p>&nbsp;</p>

     <h2>What are the main problems Semtinel tries to solve and how is it unique?</h2>
     <p>
       Semtinel,
       while definitely being a research prototype, is an extendable
       framework, that allows the import of data (thesauri, documents, and
       links between both) in various formats and provides several
       visualisations and statistical analyses that can interactively be
       combined by the user. It is also possible to develop new visualisations
       or analyses. We try to keep the interface and the framework as simple
       and intuitive as possible, focused on our specific tasks.
     </p><p>
       Some of the functionality is comparable to similar frameworks, like
       <a href="http://protege.stanford.edu/">Protege</a>
       for ontologies. But Protege, for example, is very complex and uses a
       more general approach.
     </p>

     <h2>How did you decide to base this application on the NetBeans Platform?</h2>

     <p>The
       very first prototype of Semtinel was actually developed in C# using the
       .NET framework. After the first successful presentations of the
       prototype at conferences, I thought about a clean reimplementation.
       During this time, I decided to switch to Java, mainly due to the fact
       that much more (open source) software in the research community is
       based on Java and more researchers, including our own students, are
       used to it.
     </p><p>
       For me, it was clear that I had to use a rich client
       platform for further development, as my first prototype already was too
       complex and otherwise I would have needed too much time for the
       development of the actual user interface.
     </p><p>
       The decision between
       Eclipse and NetBeans was not so easy. I had some experiences with
       Eclipse RCP and used the Eclipse IDE for years. To make a long story
       short, the reasons for the NetBeans Platform were:
     </p>
     <ul><li>
         I had NO experience with the NetBeans Platform (usually a bad reason,
         but a good one, if you are curious...).
       </li><li>
         100% Swing based (arguable, if this is an advantage, but I liked it).
       </li><li>
         And
         finally and most important: the very good graphical GUI editor. Almost
         as good as Visual Studio and the lack of such a (free) editor in
         Eclipse was always a pain for me.
       </li></ul>
     <p>
       Of course, I checked by
       feature comparison, a lot of reading and some tests, that the NetBeans
       Platform is as powerful as Eclipse RCP and that there is no major
       drawback. My conclusion here was that there is no better or worse, both
       seemed to be very good and stable. That's why I based this far reaching
       decision on the abovementioned minor points.
     </p>

     <h2>What are 3 ways in which you have benefited from the NetBeans Platform?</h2>

     <ol><li>
         Easy implementation of all these things that are usually "forgotten" in
         software implemented by researchers: background tasks, progress bars,
         menus...
       </li><li>
         The NetBeans Platform influenced the way I developed
         Semtinel. It encouraged (or forced, but that sounds negative) a
         consequent modularization which kept the code manageable. The
         modularization is especially great for Semtinel because we have
         students who develop their own modules as part of their theses. This
         way, they do not disturb the main development of the application.
       </li><li>
         Umm, I just like it, does that count?&nbsp; :-)
       </li></ol>

     <h2>Was there anything that pleasantly surprised you about the NetBeans
       Platform while you were working with it?</h2>

     <p>Nothing
       special, rather a lot of small things. In general, I found it very
       pleasant that after a (not so hard) learning phase, the development was
       really straightforward and fast. So I definitely saved a lot of time
       in the long run by using the NetBeans Platform, even if it needed some
       investment at the start.
     </p>
     <h2>Anything that could/should be improved about the NetBeans Platform?</h2>
     <p>
       The main thing: incremental builds! That is something that is definitely
       better solved in Eclipse. I know, it is due to Ant and using Ant has a
       lot of advantages. But I admit, I am a "small change, compile, test,
       small change, compile, test" developer and then it is really annoying.
       Module reloading and using a module suite on top of the Semtinel core
       modules helps sometimes, but not always.
     </p>

     <h2>Do you have a few
       tips (e.g., code snippets or hidden features) that you think other
       NetBeans Platform developers should definitely know about?</h2>

     <p>
       I developed a quick and dirty NetBeans Update Center in PHP and described it here:
       <a href="http://blog.kaiec.org/2009/07/17/nbmcenter/">http://blog.kaiec.org/2009/07/17/nbmcenter/</a>
     </p><p>
       For
       me, this is very useful, as my students can just upload their new
       modules and distribute them this way to other students.
     </p>
     <p><a href="http://blog.kaiec.org/2009/07/17/nbmcenter/"><img alt="students can upload and distribute modules"
             src="../../../images_www/articles/interviews/thesaurus-analysis/nbmcenter.png" style="border: 1px solid ;" /></a></p>
     <p>
       I need no
       special infrastructure other than a PHP enabled webserver. And as much
       as I like Java, usually there is no application server running on
       university department servers.
     </p>

     <h2>What's the future of the application and can the open source Java community contribute in some way?</h2>
     <p>
       Currently
       we are (still) working on a release version for the interested public.
       But anyone who is already interested can get a current version of
       Semtinel and the source code. I hope that the development will go on,
       it mainly depends on researchers and motivated students who are willing
       to do their research with it. I talked to several libraries who
       maintain thesauri and who are willing to test Semtinel and give me some
       feedback. The ultimate goal of course would be a user community who
       indeed uses Semtinel in a productive environment.
     </p>
     <h2>Anything else you'd like to add?</h2>
     <p>
       I would like to thank the developers and users of NetBeans who gave me
       this great piece of software, as well as the necessary knowledge how to solve
       my problems, whenever I searched for it on the web. And more than one
       time I found a solution on your <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/geertjan">blog</a>,
       so I also want to thank you personally for your efforts.
     </p>
     <h2>Thanks Kai and all the best with the ongoing work on Semtinel!</h2>

     <p>Learn more:</p>
     <ul>
       <li><a href="http://www.semtinel.org/">Semtinel Homepage</a></li>
       <li><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/semtinel/">Semtinel on Sourceforge/</a></li>
     </ul>

   </body>
 </html>
	<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
	<html xml:lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
	<head>


	<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
	<title>Interview: Modular Thesaurus Analysis Software on the NetBeans Platform</title>
	<meta name="author" content="Geertjan Wielenga" />
	<meta name="description" content="Interview with Kai Eckert who develops Semtinel,
	an application framework for the semi-automatic creation, maintenance and analysis
	of hierarchical concept schemes (thesaurus, classification or ontology).
	Semtinel is built on top of the NetBeans Platform." />
	<link href="../../../netbeans.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />
	</head>
	<body>

	<h1>Interview: Modular Thesaurus Analysis Software on the NetBeans Platform</h1>

	<p>Published on <a href="http://netbeans.dzone.com/thesaurus-analysis-on-netbeans-rcp">NetBeans Zone</a>
	by <em>Geertjan</em>, <em>2010/03/26</em></p>

	<p>
	<img alt="Kai Eckert" src="../../../images_www/articles/interviews/thesaurus-analysis/7a80b96dc5.jpg" align="right" />
	<em>Kai Eckert is a subject specialist for math and
	computer science at the University Library Mannheim. He is a computer
	scientist and before his work for the library he was a researcher
	at the Chair of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Mannheim.
	During this time, he started the development of Semtinel,
	which is the subject of this interview.</em>
	</p>

	<h2>Hi Kai, what is Semtinel and how did you get started developing it?</h2>

	<p>Semtinel
	is a research prototype for the analysis of thesauri in order to
	support their semi-automatic creation, modification, and maintenance.
	Thesauri and other hierarchical concept schemes, like taxonomies, are
	widely used in the library field to classify and describe the subject
	of resources (like books). The maintenance of these thesauri is
	cumbersome and time-consuming and questions about the quality of a
	thesaurus and its suitability for a specific purpose are not easy to
	answer.
	</p><p>
	To answer such questions was my motivation to think
	about new ways for the analysis and visualisation of thesauri and
	finally to develop Semtinel.
	</p>
	<p><a href="http://netbeans.dzone.com/sites/all/files/semtinel_0.png"><img alt="Semtinel screenshot"
	src="../../../images_www/articles/interviews/thesaurus-analysis/semtinelSmaller_0.png" /></a></p>

	<p> </p>

	<h2>What are the main problems Semtinel tries to solve and how is it unique?</h2>
	<p>
	Semtinel,
	while definitely being a research prototype, is an extendable
	framework, that allows the import of data (thesauri, documents, and
	links between both) in various formats and provides several
	visualisations and statistical analyses that can interactively be
	combined by the user. It is also possible to develop new visualisations
	or analyses. We try to keep the interface and the framework as simple
	and intuitive as possible, focused on our specific tasks.
	</p><p>
	Some of the functionality is comparable to similar frameworks, like
	<a href="http://protege.stanford.edu/">Protege</a>
	for ontologies. But Protege, for example, is very complex and uses a
	more general approach.
	</p>

	<h2>How did you decide to base this application on the NetBeans Platform?</h2>

	<p>The
	very first prototype of Semtinel was actually developed in C# using the
	.NET framework. After the first successful presentations of the
	prototype at conferences, I thought about a clean reimplementation.
	During this time, I decided to switch to Java, mainly due to the fact
	that much more (open source) software in the research community is
	based on Java and more researchers, including our own students, are
	used to it.
	</p><p>
	For me, it was clear that I had to use a rich client
	platform for further development, as my first prototype already was too
	complex and otherwise I would have needed too much time for the
	development of the actual user interface.
	</p><p>
	The decision between
	Eclipse and NetBeans was not so easy. I had some experiences with
	Eclipse RCP and used the Eclipse IDE for years. To make a long story
	short, the reasons for the NetBeans Platform were:
	</p>
	<ul><li>
	I had NO experience with the NetBeans Platform (usually a bad reason,
	but a good one, if you are curious...).
	</li><li>
	100% Swing based (arguable, if this is an advantage, but I liked it).
	</li><li>
	And
	finally and most important: the very good graphical GUI editor. Almost
	as good as Visual Studio and the lack of such a (free) editor in
	Eclipse was always a pain for me.
	</li></ul>
	<p>
	Of course, I checked by
	feature comparison, a lot of reading and some tests, that the NetBeans
	Platform is as powerful as Eclipse RCP and that there is no major
	drawback. My conclusion here was that there is no better or worse, both
	seemed to be very good and stable. That's why I based this far reaching
	decision on the abovementioned minor points.
	</p>

	<h2>What are 3 ways in which you have benefited from the NetBeans Platform?</h2>

	<ol><li>
	Easy implementation of all these things that are usually "forgotten" in
	software implemented by researchers: background tasks, progress bars,
	menus...
	</li><li>
	The NetBeans Platform influenced the way I developed
	Semtinel. It encouraged (or forced, but that sounds negative) a
	consequent modularization which kept the code manageable. The
	modularization is especially great for Semtinel because we have
	students who develop their own modules as part of their theses. This
	way, they do not disturb the main development of the application.
	</li><li>
	Umm, I just like it, does that count?  :-)
	</li></ol>

	<h2>Was there anything that pleasantly surprised you about the NetBeans
	Platform while you were working with it?</h2>

	<p>Nothing
	special, rather a lot of small things. In general, I found it very
	pleasant that after a (not so hard) learning phase, the development was
	really straightforward and fast. So I definitely saved a lot of time
	in the long run by using the NetBeans Platform, even if it needed some
	investment at the start.
	</p>
	<h2>Anything that could/should be improved about the NetBeans Platform?</h2>
	<p>
	The main thing: incremental builds! That is something that is definitely
	better solved in Eclipse. I know, it is due to Ant and using Ant has a
	lot of advantages. But I admit, I am a "small change, compile, test,
	small change, compile, test" developer and then it is really annoying.
	Module reloading and using a module suite on top of the Semtinel core
	modules helps sometimes, but not always.
	</p>

	<h2>Do you have a few
	tips (e.g., code snippets or hidden features) that you think other
	NetBeans Platform developers should definitely know about?</h2>

	<p>
	I developed a quick and dirty NetBeans Update Center in PHP and described it here:
	<a href="http://blog.kaiec.org/2009/07/17/nbmcenter/">http://blog.kaiec.org/2009/07/17/nbmcenter/</a>
	</p><p>
	For
	me, this is very useful, as my students can just upload their new
	modules and distribute them this way to other students.
	</p>
	<p><a href="http://blog.kaiec.org/2009/07/17/nbmcenter/"><img alt="students can upload and distribute modules"
	src="../../../images_www/articles/interviews/thesaurus-analysis/nbmcenter.png" style="border: 1px solid ;" /></a></p>
	<p>
	I need no
	special infrastructure other than a PHP enabled webserver. And as much
	as I like Java, usually there is no application server running on
	university department servers.
	</p>

	<h2>What's the future of the application and can the open source Java community contribute in some way?</h2>
	<p>
	Currently
	we are (still) working on a release version for the interested public.
	But anyone who is already interested can get a current version of
	Semtinel and the source code. I hope that the development will go on,
	it mainly depends on researchers and motivated students who are willing
	to do their research with it. I talked to several libraries who
	maintain thesauri and who are willing to test Semtinel and give me some
	feedback. The ultimate goal of course would be a user community who
	indeed uses Semtinel in a productive environment.
	</p>
	<h2>Anything else you'd like to add?</h2>
	<p>
	I would like to thank the developers and users of NetBeans who gave me
	this great piece of software, as well as the necessary knowledge how to solve
	my problems, whenever I searched for it on the web. And more than one
	time I found a solution on your <a href="http://blogs.sun.com/geertjan">blog</a>,
	so I also want to thank you personally for your efforts.
	</p>
	<h2>Thanks Kai and all the best with the ongoing work on Semtinel!</h2>

	<p>Learn more:</p>
	<ul>
	<li><a href="http://www.semtinel.org/">Semtinel Homepage</a></li>
	<li><a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/semtinel/">Semtinel on Sourceforge/</a></li>
	</ul>

	</body>
	</html>