[Mapserver-users] What doesn't MapServer do?

[Stephen Woodbridge]

Bill Stephenson wrote:

> I've been reviewing the docs for MapServer and many of the libraries it 
> uses and I'm having a harder time finding what it cannot do rather than 
> what it does. It says on the home page, "MapServer is not a 
> full-featured GIS system, nor does it aspire to be."
> 
> Could someone please elaborate on this? What features does MapServer 
> lack, nor aspire to include?

As its name implies, MapServer, is primarily a tool for displaying maps 
as a web service. It also queries maps because most of the same 
machinery for displaying is also required for queries. Once you move out 
of this realm of Query and Display, mapserver functionality does not 
begin to compare to real GIS systems.

For example, mapserver does not provide tools for editing data, for 
adding data, for performing spatial boolean operations on data, for 
supporting multiple user data management. There are no facilities to do 
geocoding (address or name lookups), direction finding (routing), 
network analysis and the list goes on.

While many users have built web based applications the allow data to be 
collected from web users and displayed via mapserver, they are not using 
mapserver for the data collection and storage management. This is 
typically done via server side scripting. Other users have created 
geocoding and routing solutions that run beside mapserver as a separate 
web service and are integrated via the server side scripting.

Check out the demos on http://iMapTools.com/

You will find maps, geocoding, reverse geocoding, routing, and 
drive-time analysis all glued together using PHP. The geocoding and 
routing are two separate web services that are integrated using PHP. I 
could have glued them together using any scripting language, like PHP, 
Perl, Python, etc.

-Steve W