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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Mailing List Archives |
| Subject: | RE: GISList: de facto standards |
| Date: |
07/31/2003 08:30:00 PM |
| From: |
Dimitri Rotow |
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> Yes FME is a great product. You should also look into Geography Markup
> Language (GML) the emerging world standard for encoding geographic
> information and potentially the final solution to this data
> interconversion issue. Most GI vendors have started to adopted GML
Aha, here we go with GML nonsense again. Let me guess... you think Linux is
going to replace Microsoft as the standard on the world's desktops, too,
right?
A spectacularly inefficient format, GML is based on XML and is being touted
as a "standard" in some circles, usually those same circles who rely on
other people's money to pay for their poor technological decisions. No one
in their right minds would use it if they had to spend their own money to
deal with the inefficiency it causes.
Unfortunately even among its admirers, GML is something of a non-standard
since every implementation of GML to date for saving GIS data has been
incompatible with other implementations. For example, the Ordnance Survey's
use of GML in MasterMap is not at all compatible with use of GML across the
Channel. This is a result of the foolish nature of the thing, which is
basically a language for inventing your own format that no one else can do
anything with. Besides the intrinsic incompatibility designed into GML by
the hare-brained, utopian "architecture" of GML, the main problem with GML
is the extreme inefficiency of the format: GML will frequently require files
that are over 100 megabytes in size to store GIS data that other formats can
save in only five megabytes.
For these reasons, it is the height of unresponsiveness to suggest GML as
the solution sought by the original poster for a format "to ensure
portability of digital maps ... among most of the available GIS software."
Mid/Mif? Sure. Shapefiles? Universally used. But GML? Be serious!
Cheers,
Dimitri
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