[ka-Map-users] Architectural questions.

[The Bun]

> my opinion is that openlayers is a better organized project in terms
> of code and connectivity to other projects/services, so if you are
> coming with a programmers background and need that kind of
> connectivity that is great. but with openlayers you have to create all
> of the application yourself. and that is time spent away from
> delivering your actual map content if you know what i mean.

Hi Sacha, I agree with this concept, but at a first view seems that the OL
API is quite powerfull, I agree with the performances but we should see with
a caching mechanism which I haven't tested yet. 

> more important for me, i found that open layers required specifying
> layer attributes in the client (which duplicated settings in the map
> file, sometimes over-riding), and that this made tracking errors in
> rendering more difficult. these tests were just using a test map with
> 3-5 data layers. i can't imagine how hard this would have been with a
> more complex mapfile. and most of my mapfiles are quite complex.

Agree again, I had the same difficulties, I really didn't understand if some
problems
where in the Mapfile or in the way the WMS was managed by OpenLayers.

> i come from a background of less programming, more traditional GIS,
> cartography and mapserver. for me, ka-map is much easier to use
> because ka-map really respects the content of the mapfile as far as
> rendering the maps. ka-map thinks in "groups" exactly the way
> mapserver does, while openlayers thinking is a bit different. neither
> is right or wrong, but if you have a large background in mapserver,
> kamap is a bit more intuitive.

No my background in ASP.NET, C#, Windows, ESRI, MapInfo, SQL-Server etc
while the project I am prototyping for is PHP, Unix, MapServer, Oracle. As
you can see my background in this area is about zero but I have many years
GIS development experience. Definitely ka-Map is more intuitive but the API
is not rich as the one of OL, also OL seems to be more Google look-like and
this in my organization has its importance.

> i should say that i am serving my own data, as opposed to connecting
> to services from places like google or microsoft, so this cartographic
> control was  important to me.

So do I. With Google Maps I could get the results I need in 5 minutes
working but the idea we cannot host the data is something we don't like,
although we like the aestetic of Google.

> when it comes down to it, i didn't need the flexibility that open
> layers gives because i was strictly using my own data directly via
> mapserver, and ka-map had the majority of the basic tools i needed to
> deliver my content without a lot of extra work. i fully expect i will
> have a good reason / opportunity to use openlayers in the future, it's
> just that for this particular project, the issues above caused me to
> stay with kamap.

Well, when you start a new project you have the requirements but at the same
time you try to imagine what will happen in the future and the requirements
themself can change and that is the reason I am investigating OL. 

> sacha

Again, thank you for your experience, I'll keep it in consideration.

Regards
Rosario
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