[OpenStreetMap] #4246: gpx_import fails on a ruby error (Magick)

[Andy Allan]

> Comment(by TomH):

>  There is a fundamental tensions here between the fact that we are trying
>  to develop "the OpenStreetMap web site" and other people are trying to use
>  that code base for other purposes which was never our intention.

Well, speak for yourself! It's absolutely been my intention for a
number of years to support and encourage using the code for other
purposes.

I consider it a weakness (and a large one) of the rails port codebase
that it's so damn hard to use it for other projects. If we take
potlatch2, for example, most of my core development time has been
sponsored by people who want to create and run custom versions - which
in turn leads to better code for the version that runs on osm.org

I think we should be doing the same thing for the rails port. As to
the exact technical measures, that's up for debate. I mentioned in my
other mail that I think it would be useful to abstract some of the
(very useful) nodes/ways/relations/map-call handling into a gem, but I
also think its important to make the whole site code as reuseable as
possible. We could take mysociety's theyworkforyou as an example,
where they separate out the specific-website "theme" from the core
software.

https://github.com/sebbacon/alaveteli
https://github.com/mysociety/whatdotheyknow-theme

But whatever way we do it, I think it's best to make the software as
useful as possible, and the osm.org-isms as self-contained as
possible. I think that junking working, useful code just because we're
doing something different on osm.org is the wrong approach.

Cheers,
Andy