[fdo-internals] [Fwd: [OSGeo-Announce] FOSS4G 2007 Call forWorkshops Reminder]

[Mateusz Loskot]

Robert Bray wrote:
> Mateusz,
> 
> Do you think the workshop should focus on developing a simple provider,
> e.g. an "Introduction to Provider Development" or more on using the API?

I believe both would be great :-), but I'm aware that workshops
preparation is a very time consuming task.

If only one workshop is considered, I'd focus on "using the API" as a
kind of introduction to FDO for programmers.

For example, while I'm working on the fdopostgis, I'm also trying to
prepare a set of *very* simple samples but easily to understand
and follow for FDO newbies:

http://svn.refractions.net/fdopostgis/trunk/Samples/

The introduction could present following tasks:
- what is FDO
- what I can do with FDO and what kind of application I can use it with
- where to get it
- how to build it
- FDO foundamental concepts (datastore, connection, command, feature,
schema, class, reader)
- what is an FDO object, how to understand and control its lifetime
- Simple tasks:
-- how to connect to a service
-- how to list/create/destroy a datastore
-- how to issue a feature command
-- how to use FDO as a regular SQL commands interface
-- how to handle errors in FDO

Some general suggestions:
- I'd focus on FDO use cases only
- simple environment as possible
- no talks about GUI, menus, etc.


If there is also a room  and forces to organize workshop for FDO
provider developers, I think that would be great too.

May be a very simple provider could be presented,
for simple data soruces like based on single structured file,
for instance CSV.

> In the second scenario you could envision writing a small client tool of
> some sort while demonstrating various aspects of the API along the way.

Yes.
I'd consider 2 wariants:
- simple: Using FDO API workshop
- complex: a) Using FDO API b) Writing a provider

Cheers
-- 
Mateusz Loskot
http://mateusz.loskot.net