[Re: [mapserver-users] professional MapServer services list? / ArcIMS-MapServer choice]

[Joe Bussell]

Greetings,
    I may not be able to add anything to this conversation, as much has
undoubtedly been previously considered.  I still feel compelled to add
my $0.02.
    Several months ago we had ArcIMS and MapServer on the bench for a
general comparison.  We had certain guidlines which led us to select
MapServer as the best fit for our needs.  Our first requirement was
the ability to interact with our custom route server.  This server is
very straight forward and we had complete control of the protocol.  It
was built on *nix as was our basic CGI interface.  Whatever we selected
for map generation had to be controllable from the *nix server using
server side cgi.  We put two programmers on the job.  One with ArcIMS,
the other with MapServer.  We had both producing maps of our area of
interest within a week.  The ArcIMS maps were an early lead as the map
display control was a glitzy wizard.  The next step of integrating to
our server was a big challenge for ArcIMS and trivial for MapServer.
The ArcIMS product required the development of a custom servlet on the
*nix side to interface with the java servlet on a Win2000 server.  This
seemed ugly, so I called ESRI tech support.  Quite frankly they led me
in circles for a week.  Ultimately they offered to develop a custom
server, or I could wait for the *nix version.  It was destined to be
database driven, closed source, with a fixed interface style.  While I
am usually a proponent of orthogonal interfaces, this one was cumbersome
at best.  
    At that point I gave up on ArcIMS for a while to see how interfacing 
MapServer would go.  It took two hours to get our routes to paint on top
of maps with controllable extent.  Within a few days we had live sensor
data and a user interface for the route engine.  We sent the eval copy
back to ESRI, thanking them for their time and citing our concerns.  I
think they may very well have responded to some of those, but it was too
late for us.  At that point we had a handle on pre-rastering the
static portions of our maps (still not perfect, but hey we're in beta).
Now our maps render quickly enough to show off.
    Our firm is into search and route.  We are not really a GIS firm.
We focus on applying recent research results in search, scheduling, and
constraint satisfaction to military and industrial optimization problems. 
TrafficDodger is a service intended to showcase our prediction, routing,
and scheduling tools.  It just happened that I have some background in
PERL and had the stomach to deal with cross-browser dhtml.  Now I am the
resident MapServer expert (though I do not profess to be an expert).  It
seems to me that anyone with a handle on PERL or PHP could crank out a
MapServer application in a few short weeks.  I have built some sweet
internal tools using MapServer without much effort.
   To make a long story longer, I would reccomend MapServer over
competitive products without hesitation.  The proof is in the
applications that are out there.  I hope that our site is a useful
representation of what can be done with a small amount of knowlege and a
bit of tenacity.

Cordially,

Joe Bussell
On Time Systems
www.TrafficDodger.com