[OpenLayers-Dev] Summer of Code: Why two 'web-based configuration' ideas?

[Cameron Shorter]

Chris,
Your comments are valid and it would probably help to have an IRC 
discussion to discuss this in real time. (I note that I don't have a 
detailed understanding of Lorenzo's WMC builder code).

In a nutshell, I think the key difference between the Mapbuilder 
approach and that of Openlayers is the use of XSL for service chaining 
and keeping models in XML instead of JS:

Mapbuilder:
* Stores OWS Context as an XML file.
* Uses XSL to convert various outputs (GetCapabilities response, Catalog 
search response, etc) to OWS Context.
* Exports from OWS Context to other formats (like GML, WMC, KML, ...) 
using XSL. (not complete)

Openlayers:
As I understand it, Lorenzo's code converts WMC to JS objects, then does 
manipulation of those JS objects.

Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> Cameron, Steven, Roald,
>
> Before the MapBuilder meeting a couple weeks ago, there was an
> OpenLayers Summer of Code idea titled "Web-based Configuration". I just
> looked at the SoC page [1], and realized there are now *two * web-based
> configuration ideas on the page, without a significant explanation as to
> why there are two seperate ideas.
>
> It seems to me like some portion of the "web-based configuration" code
> that would be created by such a project should not be specific to
> MapBuilder. Additionally, I think that currently, there are two ideas
> that are not sufficiently different in their goals for a student to
> understand why they would choose one over the other.
>
> I'm happy if you want to make the primary frontend for such an
> application be MapBuilder, but if that's the case, then it should be an
> extension of the code that would be written on the backend.
>
> Help me understand what's going on here? Why are the first two tasks on
> the list not integrated into one idea?  
>
> [1] http://trac.openlayers.org/wiki/SummerOfCode
>
> Thanks in advance,
>   


-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Systems Architect
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

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