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| Subject: | [gislist] RE: GISList: Cartography and Data Viewer |
| Date: |
08/27/2003 11:05:01 AM |
| From: |
Sonny Parafina |
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Pat,
Responses in-line:
>Dimitri is a Russian cynic and mathemetician, I am a seaman working in the
>third (well maybe, second) world: neither of us have a whole lot of
>"faith" in technology on first sight - applied maths cowboys & sailors have
>to make things "work", and work perfectly. The common note you hear is
>that, we also have wonderful ideas about how to move the world forward -
>radically and rapidly - but that there is a concentration on making things
>actually function in THIS world, and that, because of our backgrounds, we
>are accustomed to system failure and intrinsically design around it - not
>for elegance of design - for functioning in the real world. When we hit a
>"hole in one", we get to that design elegance which is both highly
>functional and simple - a la the architect's dictum "form follows function.
In a previous life I worked in developing countries in forestry and
agriculture, commuting to work via mule, Idrisi and a Tandy 1000 were my
tools, so I really understand how basic things are in the field and I
understand your argument. That world is far removed from the one we enjoy
in the US, so different rules apply. In the US or first world (if you
will), we have the luxury of dreaming far beyond the immediate needs of
"now" and the means to realize such dreams.
>I like much your "kites and gliders" analogy, and spent my time happily
>with Estes model rockets as a munchkin. There are those who have fun and
>dream about how the future could be - long live Asimov & the spirit of
>Heinlen - there are also those of us who bring that future into reality
>today and explore its practical applications. Long term vs. longer term:
>technological advance implementation vs. dreaming. What is the best
>analysis we can make today of what will be the optimum application in the
>future, and for how long is that design horizon valid?
Web services is not about technology. The technologies of web services are
basically a standardization effort of an amalgam of 30 year old asynchronous
communication protocols. Web services is about infrastructure. We have
always known that information is a commodity, but we have never really built
a coherent means of transferring information with fidelity.
As with any infrastructure building effort there will be mis-steps and
mishaps, sometimes we can't agree on the gauge of the track we are building
or there will be bufflo herds blocking the track. However despite these
obstacles, the US eventually built a railway system that could efficiently
and economically move goods from coast to coast. This system lasted about
100 years and was supplanted by the national highway system which was a more
flexible system. The web services protocols we see today (SOAP, WSDL, UDDI,
OGC interfaces, etc) are inefficient and built for the short haul. We can
engineer for the future all we want, but we will have to make adjusments and
redesign. It is a iterative process, which is a fancy way of saying we
gotta fix the stuff we didn't think about or expect.
>And, if we happen to be cynical & expert observers observers of the
>particular subject, we will decry irresponsible use of government R & D
>funds attempting to realize fundamentally conflicting goals. In this case
>of "universal data access protocols" we have a very close analogy to
><GOTTA_HAVE_A_BRILLIANT_CLOSING_LINE> the Esperanto experience of the late
>19th century finding government backing in the 21st Century
></GOTTA_HAVE_A_BRILLIANT_CLOSING_LINE>.
The amount of government contributions to the development of "universal data
access protocols" isn't even a drop in the bucket compared to things like
DARPANET, from which we all benefit. Having worked on a number OGC
iniatives, I can safely say that the participating companies put a lot
unpaid effort into developing these protocols and the associated software
that well exceeds the funding amount. I would conjecture that the majority
of the cost of developing OGC standards is carried by small businesses, and
not the US government or imaginary "old dinosaur major GIS vendor" cabal
that some like invoke as a boogeyman.
We do it because we think there will be a payoff in the future and we get to
use big words like ontology, a lot. Of course we could all be barking mad.
Cheers,
sonny
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