[mapserver-users] RE: [MapServer-users] Meeting
Puneet Kishor
pkishor at GeoAnalytics.com
Wed Jul 25 16:54:45 PDT 2001
Sarcasm is wasted here. Mike had a valid point. Mapserver _is_ very good,
but it has to get even better, and constructive criticism like Mike provided
is only going to make it better.
A really, really good program will not only whup ArcIMS, Oracle, SDE's
collective ass, it will also be as easy as point-and-click setup. Hopefully
Mapserver will reach there very soon. It has a great community behind it,
and best of all, most of the coders take all the criticism very positively.
pk/
--
Puneet Kishor
pkishor at geoanalytics.com
www.geoanalytics.com
GeoAnalyics, Inc.
1716 Fordem Ave
Madison WI 53704
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Fawcett, David [mailto:david.fawcett at moea.state.mn.us]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 3:01 PM
> To: mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu; 'Mike Neuman'
> Subject: [mapserver-users] RE: [MapServer-users] Meeting
>
>
>
> Yeah, I can see your point. 20 whole hours to get a
> powerful, flexible, continually updated, did I mention FREE
> software program to work. You could just spring $10,000 for
> ARC IMS and have your own map up and running in 10 hours.
>
> The documentation is getting better and better. The
> resources that could have been put into documentation in the
> past, have instead been put into new development, added
> functionality, and bug-fixes. The people developing
> MapServer, Mapscript, PHP Mapscript, etc. have put a lot of
> unpaid hours into improving the product, and they share their
> apps and code.
>
> Have you noticed that bug-fixes are often committed to the
> CVS or PHP modules within a day of notification? Noticed how
> willing people are willing to help when you post problems on
> the listserv?
>
> Yeah, I think I will go out and buy ARC IMS, SDE, and Oracle
> spatial. Should be much less painful.
>
> </sarcasm>
> </rant>
>
> David.
> > ----------
> > From: Mike Neuman[SMTP:mcn at engarde.com]
> > Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2001 6:08 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
> >
>
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