[geos-devel] ABI/API status and future development thougths

[Ted Macy]

Can I get a candid assessment here?   I'm new to GEOS.  And you guys are
scaring me off from wanting to use it.  Here is my situation:

I normally use the Cadcorp or Tatuk COM objects for our production work
(using the published OGIS Simple Feature COM Interfaces).  However we have
some public domain stuff that we share with the agriculture industry, and I
cannot make other users license the components from these vendors.  I needed
a COM compatible set of objects that that could be plugged in as an
alternative to these two commercial options, and they would only convey
geometry data between objects through a "Stable" API :).   Two years ago, I
contracted a developer to implement a COM object using C++ that would
implement the OGIS Simple Features COM interface specification.  The
implementation only knew about WKT parsing and regeneration.  It had no
other spatial functionality... buffering, intersection, etc.  

Now, I need my COM objects to implement some true spatial functionality.  I
thought I might contract a developer to set my COM wrappers on top of the
GEOS codebase and be good to go with a stand-alone set of COM-based geometry
objects.  But all of this talk about breaking compatibility, performance,
etc, etc... it is scaring me.   I don't write C++ code... I'm a C programmer
and a power VB COM programmer.  I have to contract this project out.  Can I
expect that the GEOS stuff is in a suitable state to make this project a
reality?

And, by the way... when done, I was planning to contribute the full COM
implementation back to the community if anyone was interested in it.

Thanks.
Ted Macy