[mapserver-users] Java - Mapserver

[Steve Lime]

I'd be interested in seeing the new code base. I think it's critical
that MapServer have capabilities in the Java world. A SWIG-based version
of java MapScript is one way to get there but we've been hearing about
the limitations, primarily issues with threading. There are other
options, perhaps the most intruiging would be leveraging GeoTools.
There's no way, unless a bounty of developers appears, that MapServer
will be re-written in Java. I'm not even sure that it's a good idea.
What about the possibility of writing a set of classes on top of
GeoTools to mimic MapScript? Sure, some things would have to be written
from scratch, but I would imagine (having not seen the GT2 APIs) that
much of the core functionality already exists in GeoTools (graphics
creation/query). That would give you a pure Java version of
MapServer/MapScript. The advantage of mimicing MapScript is that there's
already a user/documentation/application base to draw from. You'd
probably also have classes available to use the MapServer style of
application development (for better or worse) with regular GeoTools
components, thus extending MapScript and GeoTools.

Thoughts?

Steve

>>> James Macgill <j.macgill at geography.leeds.ac.uk> 09/02/02 05:58AM
>>>
At 14:16 30/08/2002 -0400, Dave McIlhagga wrote:
Hi, first off I should say that as one of the lead developers on
GeoTools 
my opinions may be biased ;-)

>I'm not sure that GeoTools can quite replace everything that MapServer
has 
>to offer.  For one thing, there is a heavy reliance on client-side
java 
>which is not an option for many (if not most?) MapServer
users/developers.

What you say is absolutely right for the first version of GeoTools (now

known as GT1) which used Java1.1 only code and was targeted directly at

clients.  However, for the last 8 months or so we have started from a
clean 
slate and developed a new version of GeoTools (GT2) using Java1.4 which
is 
aimed far more at the server side than the old code base.  GT2 follows
the 
OGC specs where possible and builds on the excellent Java Topology
Suite.

In fact, we have just put up a first implementation of the WMS spec
with 
support for the new Styled Layer Descriptors from the OGC.  It's still
a 
little slow at the moment but SLD does allow for very good control over
the 
appearance of map features.

The WMS currently supports Shapefiles and PostGIS (MIF/MID and GML
should 
be easy to add as there are datasource implementations in GT2).  Right
now 
we are working on improving performance, checking conformance (it works
ok 
with the cubewerx client) and developing a configuration script
(something 
like the map files in mapserver but in XML)

If you're interested, I can send you the .war file to play with or
provide 
details for obtaining the whole GT2 codebase.

All the best

James

-- 
James Macgill
Center for Computational Geography
Spell Checker (c) Creative Spelling inc (aka my dyslexic brain)
http://www.geotools.org  the open source java mapping toolkit.