[OSM-dev] JOSM patch to request T at H renders

Frederik Ramm frederik at remote.org
Fri Mar 23 13:42:23 GMT 2007


Hi,

> It is *so* much simpler for clients not to have to worry about the
> mechanisms by which their work is rendered.

If rendering is to happen automatically, it should be triggered at  
the server, not at the client. We are trying this with the RSS feed  
now, but as pointed out elsewhere, this has its flaws.

Doing it on the client side means that it has to be implemented for  
every client (and JOSM users are the ones most likely to have grasped  
the way tile updates work, I believe).

I can well understand that hacking the client is an appealing option  
because you can see instant results without having to wait for others  
to help out. But really, if someone is willing to spend time on this,  
then please do it on the server. The ideas have already been laid out  
- the API must, on upload, compute the tile number affected by the  
upload and either increase a "version counter" or set a "dirty flag"  
for this tile (all that can happen independent of the central data  
base), and the tiles at home server must dole out render requests for  
dirty tiles. It is more complex than putting it in the client, I  
understand that, and you need to understand the existing systems and  
work with OJW (for the tiles at home part) and Steve (for the API part),  
but that's the right thing to do (because it works for ALL clients  
and for ALL renderers that have an interest in tiles), and anything  
else is just workarounds.

Another option would be improving the RSS mechanism so that it works  
for 95% of all updates rather than (guessed) 25%.

Bye
Frederik

-- 
Frederik Ramm  ##  eMail frederik at remote.org  ##  N49°00.09' E008°23.33'






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