[Geowanking] a modest proposal for google maps

[Anselm Hook]

> > How do we share *simple* map information, like the kind that the google maps
> > API supports, basically markers, marker data (content), and line overlays?
> > GML?  Too complicated at first blush.
> Everything else... not complicated enough at second or third blush...
> (oh, your not using the same CRS as me?, hay points are nice, what
> about lines... now polygons... now lets put some attributes in with
> this... and styling, and ...)

Just use rss.

Don't bother sharing markers, line overlays or other features.  Best is
the enemy of good enough; it is important to exercise the lifecycle itself
as a goal rather than halting on the desire for complete solutions.

Also, practice sharing say 200 of your favorite places today, rather than
predicating the real goals on these abstract goals of defining a standard.

There are 3 ways to easily share features today:

  - enumerate them in an email and publish to a list
  - surf google maps and post places that you find to delicious
  - post to your own blog with correct rss item decoration of long/lat

All 3 ways are suitable for aggregation.

If 10 people in this community published 200 features; that would probably
be enough to kickstart others into developing cross domain aggregation
services.  Geourl, mappr, technorati, feedster -> all may tackle this
then.

What _are_ your favorite places?  How can you communicate them to me or
others here today?

I think I will go tag a few of my favorite places in fact; just by surfing
google maps and posting to del...

 - a

On Thu, 21 Jul 2005, James Macgill wrote:

> GML too comlex? yes it is in its full scope, 2.1.2 is just about
> managable and GML 3.0 in full is too complex for almost everybody.
>
> But and its a big BUT, if you have a specific application in mind, and
> you spend a little time comming up with a schema for your problem that
> is NOT complex (i.e. without lots of substituon groups and nested
> feature membership and cubic spline curves) then GML can be very easy.
>  Add to that the ability to push data in and out of a transactional
> WFS (like geoserver) and you are up and running with a lot of power
> and flexibility.  You can filter the data, do spatial queries (dwithin
> with a limit is VERY handy for gmaps markers if you want the ones near
> the center of the map but without getting more than a hundred or so
> results...)
>
> James
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