Currently, there are two major commercial vendors of GIS Software (GE and ESRI). GIS applications are big. They have a startup time of about 10 to 20 minutes. So GIS programmers prefer to be able to change code dynamically, not having to restart every time.
To do this, both of them use a virtual machine. ESRI uses .NET and GE uses Magik, a homebrewn language and VM. The most critical functions are implemented in C. However, both of them use old-fashioned approaches (The GE application stems from the pre-Windows 3.0 era, but is the most efficient of the two). I'd like to start with some serious redesigning. I've been looking into D, but since D doesn't allow me to dynamically change behavior, it most likely requires a VM. Currently, I've been looking into miniD and Ruby as possible languages that could do what I want. Currently, there are the following issues: Database - GIS applications need a GIS oriented database, able to store and perform calculations on coordinates, lines and polygons. Database triggers/constraints/stored procedures - User defined functionality User application - An application with custom windows, dialogs and menus to interact with the GIS database(s) On top of that, D is at version 2, whereas Tango is at version 1 of D. I'm still in doubt whether Phobos would be better than Tango. If so, miniD would be ruled out. If that would be the case, there needs to be a proper binding between D and Ruby. Any ideas...
