Jo Walsh wrote:
dear Justin, all,
On Mon, Nov 27, 2006 at 11:45:24AM -0800, Justin Deoliveira wrote:
Considering that not many people implement wfs altogether, I dont think
a ton of people will implement wfs-t. I agree that a simple protocol is
a big win, but not if it starts to reek havoc with existing clients.
Have you considered WFS transaction and versioning over WFS Simple?
http://www.ogcnetwork.net/wfssimple
We're definitely following WFS simple stuff there closely. Ok, Justin
is, I left the week where it really took off and haven't caught up. But
have there been any thoughts thus far to transactions? In the past I've
wondered about Atom publishing protocol as an alternative to WFS-T...
I do think/hope our implementation is compatible with things in simple.
So you'd be able to use simple to get the latest features, and you
could use simple to get the changesets as well (since it's just a table
that we can expose as WFS).
I would love it if we could include our ideas on transactions and
versioning and the like in WFS-Simple, but unfortunately I do fear that
when you get in to transactions, authentication, and versioning you're
no longer in 'simple' land (indeed I myself might argue against their
place in a simple spec).
Nothing we are doing is incompatible with simple, but most of what we're
doing is on transactions and newer stuff (diffs and rollbacks)).
WFS Simple is designed to have a lot more appeal to casual implementors.
OpenStreetmap.org is one project that's been WFS-T curious for awhile
but found the spec overhead combined with the lack of versioning /
history support, unappealing. But they would benefit hugely from
being able to plug into more generic drawing client support than their
current interface allows ( http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/REST )
Yeah, that's definitely one of our goals, to be something that OSM could
use to plug in to more generic clients. Indeed I had Andrea check out
their API today. When the simple spec settles we're definitely hoping
to include it in GeoServer (and I think one of Stefan's students was
going to look into an implementation, based at least partially on
GeoServer - I need to follow up on the status).
While the apogee for a specification is inclusion in geoserver or
mapserver, it would be great if what came out of the geoserver WFS-TV
efforts *was* appealing to and implementable by a ton of people...
We definitely hope so too, and want to encourage people to look over
what we're doing to help make it more accessible. I'm definitely open
to a REST API that works against the same backend, if that's what's
needed for 'easy'. Right now we're just extending WFS-T, since there
are clients that implement it already, as opposed to something we just
invent, which may not. We'll try to write up exactly what the protocol
will look like, if you know WFS you can check out our proposal at:
http://docs.codehaus.org/display/GEOS/Versioning+WFS+-+Phase+one+implementation+proposal
(I just read it and unfortunately it does make assumptions about knowing
how WFS works - sorry, as we tighten up and get an implementation we'll
definitely make a document of how to do version stuff with no advance
knowledge of WFS).
Again though, versioning done right is kind of a complicated thing.
We're trying making it as easy as possible. But if you have feedback to
help us on making it even easier, we're all ears, for sure. Perhaps WFS
Simple first needs to define what a simple transaction is, make a better
interface than the current WFS, and then we can build versioning on top
of that? Though I have maintained that the Transaction portion of the
spec is actually quite nice - maybe 'Simple' could just make it so it
doesn't stress about namespace and gml validation and all...
best regards,
Chris
cheers,
jo
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT
Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your
opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash
http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV
_______________________________________________
Geotools-devel mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geotools-devel
!DSPAM:1003,456b6acb289729771116852!
--
Chris Holmes
The Open Planning Project
http://topp.openplans.org
begin:vcard
fn:Chris Holmes
n:Holmes;Chris
org:The Open Planning Project
adr:;;377 Broadway, 11th Floor;New York;NY;10013;USA
email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
title:VP, Strategic Development
x-mozilla-html:FALSE
url:http://topp.openplans.org
version:2.1
end:vcard
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT
Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your
opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys - and earn cash
http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV
_______________________________________________
Geotools-devel mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/geotools-devel
