I wouldn't plan to touch the back-end DB (is it MySQL atm?) - just write a for-comparison C++ API - and if it's not faster, or it's considerably more obfuscated and harder to maintain, then it can be left to decompose quietly, unused... ;-)
I think the task is something sufficiently straightforward that the C++ can be made very user-friendly and pretty easy to maintain. I think we'll have a look at developing the Apache module and you can all see what you think if/when it's done... Cheers, Alex On 12/05/2008, Frederik Ramm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi, > > > > > If you're really adventurous then re-implement the whole server API in > > > C++ - it's not a big deal, you can leave the UI stuff in Rails, just > get > > > the stuff from > > > > Is this an *open* thing? I'm serious. > > > > I mean... if a random user would write something like the OSM API in a > > random database, that could seriously be evaluated?! > > > I'm pretty sure it would. > > Until now we have had many people tell us that everything could be > faster if implemented in "X", but as far as I can tell we never had > anyone say "look I implemented everything in X and it is 10 times > faster". > > Of course we always have to take into account how manageable something > is for the community. Rails is very manageable, but performs less than > stellar. A C++ API based on a popular SQL database would, I assume, > perform almost stellar but be a little less manageable (old-fashioned > guy that I am I'd trade in Rails for C++ any time but I know some of > the more modern-minded people are doubtful - maybe the holy grail is > somewhere in between, Rails reportedly has very good support for > linking in bits of C code). > > If someone where to re-write the API in an obscure language with a > database system that's hardly used in the OS community, and achieve > 10 times better performance than we have, then I don't know whether > that would be adopted - after all we need developers for the API and > it's no good to throw rocks in their path by selecting too obscure > technology. But then again, there will come a time when we will need > the 10 times better performance, so who knows ;-) > > > Bye > Frederik > > -- > Frederik Ramm ## eMail [EMAIL PROTECTED] ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33" > >
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