agg changes

[Paul Spencer]

Steve,

I'd like to suggest defering cartographic enhancements (by which I  
mean additional keywords in the map file to specify more advanced  
cartographic options) until post 5.0.  I think, since you are moving  
from 4.x to 5.x and *can* make some changes that are not necessarily  
backwards compatible, that you should consider removing things from  
the mapfile at this point that don't work or won't be supported in  
order to establish a minimum baseline which the 5.x series can build  
on by adding new features without having to make an incompatible  
change in the next version.  Essentially, I am advocating stripping  
out as much as possible/practical, and then adding new stuff post 5.0.

Looking forward to 5.2, I think it would be really beneficial to  
start a dialog with the user community on cartographic needs and try  
to establish a set of requirements that can be built towards in the  
5.x series.  I know that MapGuide has implemented point and line  
support for a massive USGS cartographic standard and has some very  
impressive demos of the new cartography.  There is also a large  
document describing the cartographic needs of the Canadian national  
dataset folks.  There are probably other 'standards' out there too.

AGG has given mapserver an excellent foundation to build on for  
premium cartography, and I think it would be a mistake to leave stuff  
in mapserver 5.0 that we may regret post 5.0.

Cheers

Paul

+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
|Paul Spencer                          pspencer at dmsolutions.ca    |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+
|Chief Technology Officer                                         |
|DM Solutions Group Inc                http://www.dmsolutions.ca/ |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------+