[postgis-users] Roadmap for next major release of PostGIS

[Chris Hermansen]

Mark has certainly addressed my very limited number of concerns about
this (except Python, snif). :-)

I agree as well with the point raised by ?? - let's all agree to
maintaining developer interest by not asking them to keep maintaining
1.3.1 on PostgreSQL 7.4

Mark Cave-Ayland wrote:
> Chris Hermansen wrote:
>
>> Ideally, all of us users out there should want to see an approach that
>> makes builds "simple" for developers :-)
>>
>> But in the interesting situation where we users find ourselves needing
>> to build some components from source (say, because GEOS in the Ubuntu
>> repos is still at 2.2):
>>
>> Do you anticipate trying to make a PGXS-based build system for GEOS and
>> Proj as well?
>>
>> Do you forsee this PGXS-based approach working well in conjunction with
>> headers and libraries delivered through package managers like apt or
>> yum?  Speaking selfishly, I'd rather not see you make it easier for
>> building on a windows platform at the expense of others...
>>
>> I guess a more productive way to make this comment is how do the
>> developers see the user community doing builds?  Do you need us to tell
>> you when, why, how?
>
> Hang on a second. PGXS is a set of Makefiles provided with PostgreSQL
> to facilitate the building of modules that link into the PostgreSQL
> backend. It doesn't affect the build of GEOS or PROJ at all, and from
> the user's point of view, a PostGIS build is still just "configure"
> followed by "make install" for Unix-type systems. As a result of the
> re-organisation, though, the code should stand some chance of building
> reasonable under MSVC. But that will still require more testing.
>
>> It would be nice if Proj and GEOS dependencies also suggested to the
>> builder that the latest version should be used...
>
> The current test code has full version checking for both GEOS and
> PROJ, so please provide technical reasons as to which minimum versions
> should be supported. From a purely selfish point of view, I'd be
> tempted to make the minimum version of PROJ 4.5.0 since earlier
> versions don't contain the right datum for correct OSGB transformations.
>
>> Too bad it wasn't possible to write the regression tests in Python.
>> Why?  Well, I think having some documented examples of good Python /
>> PostGIS / PostgreSQL usage would be very helpful to the users thinking
>> about coming over from an ESRI / Python environment...
>
> Perl seems to be the best choice as it is required for both the
> PostgreSQL Unix and Win32 builds - hence it requires one less extra
> dependency. It's also just regress testing, i.e. launching processes,
> comparing output etc. rather than connecting using proper drivers and
> doing useful work.
>
>> I didn't see official mention of the launch point for all of the above,
>> but based on the preceding paragraph I'm assuming that all this Good
>> Stuff will happen in 1.4, or 2.0, or something like that...???
>
> Well some of the work has already started in SVN trunk. The next
> release is slated to be 1.4, although who knows what may happen if new
> features get added? ;)
>
>
> ATB,
>
> Mark.
>


-- 
Regards,

Chris Hermansen         mailto:chris.hermansen at timberline.ca
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