A confused Network Admin

[Simpson]

A perspective from another user, Mapserver has by far the most exact, timely
and detailed documentation; source code.  Though definitely not the most
user friendly, if one can understand the methods by which the geniuses write
Mapserver, gdal, etc., then no amount of money could be spent to write an
equivalent help system.  If I had a vote, I'd prefer these guys continue to
keep up with and invent the rapidly moving bleeding edge of GIS over writing
documentation.

Sorry, I couldn't take it any more,
Drew.

-----Original Message-----
From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at lists.umn.edu]On
Behalf Of Ed McNierney
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 3:25 PM
To: MAPSERVER-USERS at lists.umn.edu
Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] A confused Network Admin


Christine -

Yes, I agree - but how much time have you spent working your way through
that process?  While there are CERTAINLY disadvantages to the support
mechanisms currently available for MapServer, you don't get to call
Microsoft and get help from the person who wrote the code you're using.
And the support you get here is indeed from those of us with "real world
experience and real world problems".

At no charge, and relatively promptly, you've gotten help from about
half a dozen individuals including MapServer developers and some
real-world users.  It's certainly not perfect, but it's better than what
I've found in the majority of the commercial products I've used.

Put another way, suppose your consultant told you to set up and install
ArcIMS, Oracle, IIS, and Visual Studio when you had never seen ANY of
those products before.  I don't know which would be quicker or easier,
but neither process would be simple.

        - Ed

-----Original Message-----
From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On
Behalf Of Lisi, Christine
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 4:08 PM
To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] A confused Network Admin

There's no doubt that there are a lot of poor support personnel out
there.  The main problem is that they are not out here in the real world
with real world experience and real world problems!  But if I get
someone with a lack of knowledge on my problem I will ask them to
escalate the call to a 2nd level team.  Most, if not all, software
companies have 2nd level support teams and 9 times out of 10 those teams
are the actual programmers.  Microsoft, the largest software company in
America (right?) has got some of the worst technicians around, but they
are very respectful and will ALWAYS pass you to 2nd level support if
they cannot help.  I guess it's how much you are willing to push.  I
don't take no for an answer when it comes to getting a job done, and the
other thing is that I do not call support unless I know it is a real
problem with the software.  I always refer to knowledge bases, support
docs, etc. before calling for help.

Christine Lisi
Application Specialist

Management Information Systems * City of Delray Beach * 100 NW First
Avenue, Delray Beach, FL 33444

Phone, 561-243-7142 * Fax, 561-243-7166 * eMail, Lisi at MyDelrayBeach.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Ed McNierney [mailto:ed at topozone.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 3:58 PM
To: Lisi, Christine; MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: RE: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] A confused Network Admin

Christine -

While I completely agree on the lack of documentation, I am amazed that
you use commercial software where you can make a phone call and actually
get answers <g>.  It has been my experience that most users on this list
find the level and quality of technical support they receive far better
than they get from commercial providers.

        - Ed

-----Original Message-----
From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On
Behalf Of Lisi, Christine
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 2:09 PM
To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] A confused Network Admin

Marco - I couldn't have put it better myself.  The best OpenSource
documentation of the four I have dealt with in the last 2 weeks came
with PHP; twenty-three pages of step-by-step instructions, and they
didn't forget about Windows users.  I agree that this listserver
wouldn't be nearly as busy if the documentation on the OpenSource
products was more complete and precise, and I also wish there was more
of a collaborative effort between the programmers when releasing new
versions.

All I can say is, thank goodness for this listserver because I could
have never gotten through this with documentation alone.

Christine Lisi
Application Specialist

Management Information Systems * City of Delray Beach * 100 NW First
Avenue, Delray Beach, FL 33444

Phone, 561-243-7142 * Fax, 561-243-7166 * eMail, Lisi at MyDelrayBeach.com


-----Original Message-----
From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On
Behalf Of Marco Marsella
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 1:07 PM
To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] A confused Network Admin

I would like to reassure Christine that she's not the only one confused
about OpenSource in general and MapServer in particular. I have over 25
years of professional programming experience in too many languages,
starting with FORTRAN IV when some of the listers here where probably
not even able to read yet ;-)

I find myself also *very* confused because of the terribly poor
documentation that usually complements OpenSource projects. Most often
than not, there is just a very technical document that tersely explains
what you can do with this or that parameter. With most Java projects
you just find the JavaDoc! There is little or no high-level
documentation that explains the architecture and lets you find your way
around. Most of the projects require that you spend an inordinate
amount of time looking at the code to understand what you can do and
how.

For me, I find the MapServer documentation absolutely insufficient and
it is amazing how people prefer to spend a lot of time replying on this
list rather than investing much more efficiently their time writing
decent documentation and providing good tutorials and examples.

Please, do not misunderstand me! I think MapServer is a terrific
project and I am incredibly grateful to the very knowledgeable guys out
there willing to help through the list. Only, I would much prefer
having good documentation to work through and bother the listers only
when absolutely necessary.

As you may have seen, I put my.. time where the mouth is. As soon as I
learn how to do something, I will post a message to the list hoping
that it might be of help to others (see "[UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] A
simple... sample!" dated 10 Feb 2005). Sure, it is a trivial example,
but it took me *a lot* of time (and a zillion Google searches) to
figure out, much longer than I would expect! I will be more than happy
to continue doing so to alleviate the trouble of learning MapServer!

Cheers

Marco