> > So what are our dream features from a js web map API? Not to change scope of the question but can't we do better? Isn't there any way to get beyond Javascript, the DOM, HTML and the like? We are locked away from hardware resources that already exist on these machines; persistence, math, rasterization...
The DOM is weak. What impresses about Google Maps is that it exists at all; not that it does what the average video game did 20 years ago... Even Flash sticks with a DOM like model... Papervision3D is a good example of just how hard one has to work - 3d matrix multiples are interpreted, polygons have to be sorted by hand, even texturing a surface has to be done by tessellation by hand... it is a super human effort... Then you have ideas like SVG which fail to innovate whatsoever in terms of raw capabilities; and yet somehow expect to steal market share away from Flash - based on features like "its open source!" that end users completely do not care about. You have fledgling projects to offer client side persistence in the browser.... You have market struggles between projects like Silverlight and Adobe AIR as attempts to break out of the browser limits... You have the detrius of VRML and a zillion proprietary 3d extensions... I'd like to see (1) a small attempt to add some minimal 3d extensions to Firefox (even just 3d matrix multiplies and 3d textured polygons) - such as is being done in Safari - the folks that added SVG should do this (2) and some minimal attempt to provide default client side storage - not in flash or not using flash like DOJO does but truly native... I think with that it would be possible to build pretty rich and satisfying interfaces... - anselm _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://lists.burri.to/mailman/listinfo/geowanking
