So I thought I'd take some time to outline some important upcoming changes in the dotNetRDF library structure. Currently we have a single library dotNetRDF.dll which you will often see referred to as the Core library. The problem we have is that as we've added more features to the library over time we're increasingly adding features that are of use to only a small section of the user base e.g. SQL backed stores but which come with dependency penalties. Therefore we have made an official decision to start reducing our dependency bloat and deliver new features and APIs that we don't consider to be Core functionality as separate libraries.

So what does this mean for you as a developer using dotNetRDF?

• You can pick and choose which added features you want, if you've never used SQL backed stores you won't have to care about that feature and you (eventually) won't need dependencies like MySql.Data
• From a code perspective very little changes, if you need the extra features you simply add an extra reference

This change will also have a number of benefits for us such as making it easier to port the core library onto different platforms - for example the next release 0.5.0 will have builds for .Net 3.5, .Net 3.5 Client Profile, Silverlight 4 and Windows Phone 7.

The next release (0.5.0) will consist of the following 3 libraries:

1. dotNetRDF.dll - This is the core library which contains the majority of the functionality and dependencies most users need.
2. dotNetRDF.Data.Sql.dll - This is a new library which provides a completely new SQL based store which we've been working on for a while, see dotNetRDF Store for some more details on this.
3. dotNetRDF.Data.Virtuoso.dll - This is a new library that splits the Virtuoso support out from the core library since the support comprises a minimal number of classes but requires a whole dependency in the core library.

Our release process is also adding NuGet packages so all of these will be available directly via NuGet for VS2010 users!

If you have any questions on this upcoming changes you can always get in touch via the Support page.

Tags: Changes, Core Library, Dependencies, Libraries, Library, Releases, SQL, Virtuoso