[Qgis-developer] QGIS Processing Framework

[Paolo Cavallini]

Il giorno ven, 29/04/2011 alle 10.45 +0200, Soeren Gebbert ha scritto: 
> IMHO installing a WPS server with different back-ends is no magic. The
> web server, the WPS server and the back-ends can be bundled and
> installed as easy as QGIS with all its plugins and libraries and third
> party dependencies. This is technically no problem and IMHO the
> 52North guys are able to provide such an out of the box solution.

Isn't it 52north in java? This will introduce a dependency on java that
is IMHO unacceptable for QGIS.

> You will still need wrapper for each software you want to integrate to
> wrap there interface into the abstract QGIS process framework. So the
> design of a really powerful abstract process framework providing
> interaction and stuff is a lot of work and needs plenty of knowledge
> about all the software which might be integrated as processes in QGIS.

I do not agree: wrapping GRASS and GdalTools was a fast and effective
process IMHO.

> My main concern is the manpower which is needed to implement AND
> maintain such a framework as well as the wrapper and binding for other
> software packages. For example the GRASS GIS integration in QGIS. If
> there is nobody in the GRASS GIS or QGIS community who is willingly to
> take responsibility and time to maintain, update and extend it, it
> will be unusable in the future or it will depend on an obsolete or
> buggy GRASS GIS version.

This is true,and will be true regardless of the kind of implementation
we will choose. My idea is that moving as much as possible to a common
analytical framework we'll be able to join forces in a more effective
way.

> I am absolutely not against a cool abstract process framework in QGIS,
> but i would like to bring some IMHO important considerations into
> discussion.

Yes, we all appreciate that. Very interesting discussion.
All the best.
-- 
Paolo Cavallini: http://www.faunalia.it/pc