[mapserver-users] Meeting

[Doyon, Jean-Francois]

Well, I suppose this is a true to a certain extent, although I never had
quite that much trouble with it :)

I suppose this is not necessarily symptomatic of MapServer itself, so much
as the nature of OpenSource software.  Working with OSS is definitely
different, and if you're not used to it, it can seem like a pain.  It often
requires more work as far as researching, reading docs, trial and error,
compiling and re-compiiling and so on.  but there are two very big
advantages to this: A steep learning curve helps learning.  Don't worry, byt
the time you're on your third MapServer project, things will neem like
second nature. Also, as with most software, usability and simplicity have to
be balanced with being featureful.  the more features you want, the more
complicated to use.  I'd rather a complicated software that does everything
I need it to properly, than something that looks good but works like crap
*cough*windows*cough*.

As for the documentation, you landed in a transition period! The MDP is
working hard to get decent documentation out there! I've contributed c ouple
of documents myself, and intend on doing more.  Although I suppose I am
partial to them, I'd have to say that they ARE a LOT better than the old
series of docs. I *think* I had volunteered to do the MapScript, I'll have
to check :) I would recommend everybody look at the MDP page (Linked from
the current docs page) for more info and if you're interested to
contribute.  I think it's important nobody duplicate efforts.

As for examples, well, how about some sort of on-line database of resources
like that? A place where users themselves could submit snippets of code and
mapfiles, could include a description of what it does and so on, maybe even
data where legal. Kind of a knowledge-base I guess. then people who did cool
new and unsual things with mapserver could share their experience with all
of us :)

My .02$ !
J.F.

> ----------
> From: 	Mike Neuman[SMTP:mcn at engarde.com]
> Sent: 	Tuesday, July 24, 2001 7:08 PM
> To: 	mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
> Subject: 	RE: [mapserver-users] Meeting
> 
> > MapServer is not just a success, it is a raving success.
> 
>   I'm new to the Mapserver community. I would agree with this statement
> from
> a *technical* point of view, but strongly disagree from an approchability
> point of view. There are virtually NO examples of how to create maps, do
> things in mapscript, etc. It took at least 20 hours of me fighting with
> Mapscript and a .map file before I could get a relatively simple map to
> display. Then another 8 hours to get the projection right. If I didn't
> hate
> my GIS program so much, I probably would have given it up after the first
> few hours.
> 
>   The documentation has several major errors (queryByPoint still appears
> on
> the web site, when queryUsingPoint is correct), PHP Mapscript crashes my
> webserver when executing simple (and correct, according to the docs) code,
> and Perl Mapscript coredumps whenever you create a new class in an
> existing
> layer or a new layer in an existing map. To get the projection stuff to
> work
> as you might expect, I had to upgrade to 3.5. My existing Mapscript code
> stopped working entirely (with only minor changes made to fix the semantic
> changes of msSaveImage) by spitting out a blank map, so I had to downgrade
> to 3.3. Finally, in attempt to debug several things on my own, I
> downloaded
> and installed SWIG. Unfortunately, the .i files are no longer compatible
> with the current version of SWIG. I could not build mapscript from the CVS
> checkout, and I could not overwrite any of the _wrap files on the nightly
> builds.
> 
>   All of these problems have workarounds, but without examples, it's an
> *extremely* painful process to figure them out.
> 
>   So, I implore the Mapserver community: Contribute every Mapscript and
> .map
> sample file you can find and *put it in the distribution*. Or at least
> make
> another distribution (and ms_demo doesn't cut it) that has dozens of
> examples. The Mapscript examples IN the mapscript distro are
> worthless--they
> don't even draw a map!
> 
>   Thanks for listening. :-) I do love Mapserver. It's something I've
> wanted
> for a long time. I can't imagine how fast Mapserver's use would spread if
> it
> were approachable. That's all I ask.
> 
> -Mike
>