[Mapserver-users] Architecture Question - Mapserver and Databases

[Tyler Mitchell]

> I'm new to mapserver, but I have read alot of the archives, so I do know
> some of these questions have been done to death, but please bear with 
me,
> I'll try to be as articulate as possible.

FYI - Are you also familiar with the Ottawa user group?  Someone else 
could comment on how active they are, but you  may have others who can 
share your pain face-to-face at Carleton or elsewhere in Ottawa.
http://www.omsug.ca/contact.html

> 3. What 'killer' features do these GIS data types enable anyways, 
obvious
> to me are things like detecting intersections, but what else?

Think GIS.  That's what a spatial db like PostGIS allows.  For many, "GIS 
means mapping", because that is what many GIS-like commercial products 
excel at - as opposed to excelling at spatial data analysis.  Likewise, 
most of the alternative db's that are available focus on providing spatial 
data storage, requiring $pecial $oftware to do any kind of analysis or 
manipulation of the data. 
With the current functionality of PostGIS in particular (I'm not familiar 
with mysql's capabilities), you could actually do all your GIS processing 
in the database including unioning of layers, overlap detection, 
buffering, distance calculations, and more.  Putting this all together 
into a MapServer application gives you the ability to not just map static 
layers but also, with some programming of course, provide interactive 
analysis and visualization capabilities.

Hope that helps... let me know if you want to me to continue ranting :)

Tyler