[OSM-dev] [OSM] Informations about osmarender for Google SoC

[Mario]

Hi Robert!

Robert (Jamie) Munro ha scritto:
> I would like a thing on OSM.org that lets me select an area from the
> slippy map with a draggable box (like the shift-drag feature), but
> instead of just zooming, took me to a page where I can choose from a few
> style options and parameters and download an SVG that I can load into
> inkscape, Adobe Illustrator, Xara Xtreme or whatever to edit and then
> print.

This is another great idea for extending the "web app way"! OSM IMHO 
should really offer great functionalities beyond other maps'.

It's getting a little bit difficult to make everyone happy :)
The most difficult thing is that any possible solution has great 
integrations problems because of the language used (Java? Ruby? Python?)

So I can try a different (crazy?) proposal: In my PHP works, I've got in 
touch with an extension that made Java classes available to PHP 
language. I've done a 1 minute search (so please forgive me if they 
couldn't fit well with OSM and if there are other options I've not 
considered) and found that there are similar projects for Ruby and 
Python both:

For Ruby:
RJB: http://rjb.rubyforge.org/

For Python:
Jython: http://www.jython.org/Project/index.html
JPype: http://jpype.sourceforge.net/

Beyond my Google application (in which I think it's better to remain a 
little bit vague about the final GUI implementation, because some other 
discussion is needed), my crazy proposal is to write the core in Java 
(which I already know) with a great structured API that makes available 
"services" for rules handling to Ruby (Web app) and Python (Inkscape).

This could let me help the community the best as I can (my research 
abilities, i.e. for rules/XML structure studying and parametrized CSS 
improving, UML Design for structuring classes and API, usability studies 
for the future GUI, Java for core implementation) and then leave better 
specialized contributors to port the real GUI implementation everywhere 
is needed in other projects' own languages.

Is this a total madness?

Mario