Maybe it’s just me, but when someone decides it’s worth the effort and expense to actually
write a book about something like MapServer, it’s a big deal—sort of a watershed moment. So
needless to say, I was very excited when I first heard about this book. At long last, I have something
to show to my wife—tangible evidence that I was really doing something during those
long nights in the basement (strangely enough, C code just makes her eyes glaze over—go figure).
First, a bit of history: MapServer arose out of necessity, since in the mid-nineties there were
few, if any, decent commercial alternatives. Initial work centered on web-based front ends to
commercial GIS software. This worked well, but was painfully slow—and I endured constant
complaints from graduate students about licenses for our expensive GIS being used by the
public to make maps online. There had to be a better way.
Mercifully, I found shapelib—which, when paired with the GD graphics library, brought
MapServer to life (and stopped the complaints). Add a few best-of-breed open source packages
(e.g., GDAL, Proj.4, PostGIS, and FreeType) and a number of talented developers—and here we
sit 10 years later with a pretty powerful piece of software.
At its essence, MapServer is conceptually very simple, but unless you share the thought
processes of the core developers, the learning curve can be a bit steep. For many open source
projects, documentation is a weak point, and MapServer is no exception. Actually, there’s a
huge amount of MapServer documentation, but it’s scattered loosely across mailing lists,
sample applications, and websites. That’s why this book is so valuable—especially to someone
new to MapServer.
Bill has brought together all of the information for someone getting started with MapServer
in one place—from installation to MapScript, it’s all here. I appreciate the fact that he read any
existing documentation and actually put it to the test, often finding syntactical inaccuracies
and undocumented features. Fortunately, we all benefit from his pain and suffering.
Bill’s work is more than a MapServer reference manual (see Chapter 11 and the Appendix
for that stuff). It’s full of numerous detailed examples—mapfiles, templates, and scripts that
make learning this stuff far easier. When writing about a technical subject, perspective is everything.
As a developer, I often find myself glossing over important details, such as installing the
software—in the case of MapServer, however, these details are crucial.
I continue to enjoy working with this software everyday—either building applications with
it or doing core development. I hope that this book will help users get up to speed quickly so
they can move on to the fun part!
Stephen Lime
MapServer/MapScript Creator
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