[OSM-dev] What is the main API? (was Re: OWL + OSM Activity Server)

[Alex Barth]

On Oct 19, 2012, at 12:54 AM, Roland Olbricht <roland.olbricht at gmx.de> wrote:

> > This specific functionality seems like something we'd want directly
> > supported in the railsport, no? Or is it so expensive that it has to be
> > tiered out into its separate application?
>  

[…]

>  
> I think the core problem is that there are two different concepts of "main API" around:
>  
> There is the lean approach, or technical point of view, geared towards scalability: Obviously, we need a central instance for managing the id space, and that place can also seralize all edits to the database. This has good chances to scale, but means that anything beyond immediate editing support has to go off the main API sooner or later when it turns out to be the roadblocker at that time of scalability.
>  
> And there is some kind of "approval" point of view, or marketing point of view, seeing tools with a .osm.org domain in some sense approved/superior/preferred or whatever. This comes from our usual experience with brands or large companies that differentiate "the inside" from "the outside". It doesn't match neither the common sense nor the factual situation around the project, think of JOSM (which is not on osm.org) or the Geofabrik and CloudMade extracts and several others, but it is very straightforward.
>  
> I tend to prefer the first point of view, but I accept that the second point of view is fairly often unchallenged told. From the first point of view, it is pretty clear that a history stream belongs to a third party tool.

Not sure I buy into this dichotomy. Application level integration != user facing integration. Or in other words: it's thinkable to have features on openstreetmap.org that appear seamlessly integrated to the user but are powered from a separate tier - separate application or separate application on separate server. No?

>  
> Cheers,
>  
> Roland
>  
> _______________________________________________
> dev mailing list
> dev at openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev

Alex Barth
http://twitter.com/lxbarth
tel (+1) 202 250 3633