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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Mailing List Archives |
| Subject: | RE: GISList: Cartography and Data Viewer |
| Date: |
08/26/2003 09:35:00 AM |
| From: |
J Bee |
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Dimitri Rotow <dar@manifold.net> wrote:
"Last week's events show how unreliable web services
are under the stress of even a single virus."
How unreliable web services are? How about how
unreliable Microsoft's operating system is - ya know,
that company you drool over in 90% of your emails?
Yes the masses use it (oh no, there is no monopoly
here), and yes this company has more holes in it's
various software packages than swiss cheese. How many
viruses do you read about with Apple?
Once again Dimitri you talk outta both sides of your
mouth. You goo goo over Microsoft, but then you
chastise a system that allows viruses (i.e.
Microsoft). I belive the phrase I'm looking for here
is "windbag"
Btw, any chance for a full disclosure on how many
shares of Microsoft you own?
Bob
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Dimitri Rotow <dar@manifold.net> wrote:
"However, if you feel that setting up the same data
that everyone has set up a million times over and over
again is a waste of time then look into OGC
interfaces. For example the USGS is the data producer
and steward of many spatial data products, however
instead of distributing only files, the data is
distributed through a web service that only provides
the current data you"
Lucky for most GIS users the USGS continues to
distribute files. Well, at least those that it has not
privatized by giving them away to private parties.
want when you want it. This saves you the time of
searching, downloading, unzipping, converting,
formatting, projecting, loading, serving up the data,
and maintaining it. The flab in desktop gis is the 80%
of your budget spent on processing the same data that
other organizations have already done.
If it is good data, it doesn't need much processing.
If it is bad data, it will need processing whether or
not you fetch it from a web service or from a file.
Likewise for projections, etc. People find it
convenient to fetch
data in files because it is so much faster, more
reliable and more flexible than getting it from a web
service. There is no need to invent slow and
inefficient OGC things to prevent people from having
access to data.
Last week's events show how unreliable web services
are under the stress of even a single virus. This will
get much worse before it gets better. Even in the best
of times, web access is unthinkably slow compared to
simply
opening a file on one's own machine. Given the
absurdly low cost (essentially, free) of disk, it
makes sense to grab all the data you might want from
USGS so you can have the data on hand to do what you
want with it
when you want. Why be dependent upon USGS? You never
know, after all, when USGS will decide to change the
service, to make it unavailable, to start charging for
it, to give it away to a private company or if it will
just simply be too slow to use when you need it.
The idea of web services that just give you only that
part of the data you "need" is just another webstacle
to keep you from having access to *all* the data you
might want. Don't buy into that, or the next thing you
know you won't have access to all the data when you
need it.
Cheers,
Dimitri
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