State of MapServer...

[Robert Chavez]

Steve et al.

I'd be happy to help out with detailed examples and documentation for Perl
mapscripting.  I've put mapscript through it's paces and have picked some
useful scripting pointers along the way (with lot's of help from people on
this list!).  

In addition to better examples and doc, maybe a mapscript Perl/PHP FAQ
would be a good idea, especially for the most common new user
questions. 

I have to agree with Steve on the CVS issue.  SourceForge is a great idea,
but since Mapserver is in such a dynamic state right now I think the speed
of the UMN connection is a great boon for those of you on the bleeding
edge.  Especially since UMN has a good history of supporting Steve's
work.  

I think Daniel suggested writing a revision history text file and keeping
that under CVS as well -- this would be a valuable addition to the doc.

Best Wishes,
Robert Chavez
Perseus Project
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu

On Wed, 25 Oct 2000, Stephen Lime wrote:

> Man, lots of traffic on the list these days and all good conversation. I'm all in favor of
> getting more people involved in actual code development, but now is not the right time.
> Perhaps with MapServer 4- which is on the horizon. As always I/we or whatever will
> solicit input from the user community. The mailing list numbers 230+ so clearly something
> is being done right.
> 
> SourceForge - Unless the University can't or won't house the project I see no reason
> to move. Being one of 10,000 projects doesn't sound appealing. A fast, robust CVS
> server is key and the UMN can provide that. Certainly other tools could/should be 
> employed for bug tracking and I'll encourage the UMN to get one running. Bugzilla seems
> to be pretty good. Other suggestions are of course welcome. A running change log is part
> of CVS.
> 
> The biggest need I see is more detailed examples and documentation. Functionality is such
> that most users aren't pushing the software. I think the primary reason is that most just aren't
> aware of possiblities (or my current docs suck). That was the reason for the original call for
> volunteers. What I propose is to move the documentation and demo portions of the main
> mapserver site into CVS with sub-groups of MapServer users responsible for updates and
> additions. With the main demo and the test suite there is enough to start from, same goes 
> for the docs. It's important to not have only those doing coding involved. Often I'm so tied
> to the code I can't anticipate issues that those using it can. That's why Perry's demo instructions
> are far better than I could write. The University is setting up 2 new mailing lists to direct documentation
> and demo development: mapserver-demo and mapserver-docs. When those are ready I'll make
> another call for participation.
> 
> I really like Perry's demo "howto" and would like to see a bunch of these written (i.e. howto add
> the mapplet applet, howto use projections and so on). Works for RedHad anyway.
> 
> What do folks think?
> 
> Steve
> 
> Stephen Lime
> Internet Applications Analyst
> 
> Minnesota DNR
> 500 Lafayette Road
> St. Paul, MN 55155
> 651-297-2937
>