[OSM-dev] implemented API for J2SE and J2ME (NameFinder Client API)

[Frederik Ramm]

Hi,

> Thing is: is there
> anything we need that LDAP does not give us?

Let me ask the other way round: What are the cool things that LDAP 
*does* give us and where it saves us time compared to do something 
ourselves?

I believe that the major complexity in the name finder is that "real 
language" user queries have to be matched to what is in the data base. 
This means something like

1. process the query and try to find out what user wants (is it "pubs 
near <street>" or "<village> in <country>" or "<street>,<town>" or 
"<town>,<street>" or ...)

2. query the database and see what you find

3. if result looks sub-optimal, goto 1, this time trying another 
interpretation.

Any mechanism that imposes a strict sequence (1. analyze query, 2. make 
database request, 3. return results) without letting actual database 
contents influence the query analyze step is probably too simple to 
solve our needs.

Bye
Frederik