http://veryspatial.com/2006/08/the-hammer-for-every-nail/ Discussions on Geography and geospatial technologies Wed, 23 May 2012 07:58:58 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 http://veryspatial.com/2006/08/the-hammer-for-every-nail/comment-page-1/#comment-210896 Eric Wed, 16 Aug 2006 22:23:32 +0000 http://veryspatial.com/?p=1032#comment-210896 One could equally argue that having 'so many formats' is not necessary bad - what is truly bad are overly complex and incomprehensible Standards. "Standards" of all stripes become truly standard not simply because they are certified by some Standards Body but rather because they prove to be robust and useful in practice. I would propose that smaller and more focused standards tend to be more successful than those more comprehensive ones designed by committee because they solve a particular problem well and can be more easily understood. The disaster of SDTS is a case it point (even its Profiles didn't help much). The brilliant complexity that is GML is at a tipping point of being useable by humans (it's profiles may be more workable). One could equally argue that having ‘so many formats’ is not necessary bad – what is truly bad are overly complex and incomprehensible Standards. “Standards” of all stripes become truly standard not simply because they are certified by some Standards Body but rather because they prove to be robust and useful in practice. I would propose that smaller and more focused standards tend to be more successful than those more comprehensive ones designed by committee because they solve a particular problem well and can be more easily understood. The disaster of SDTS is a case it point (even its Profiles didn’t help much). The brilliant complexity that is GML is at a tipping point of being useable by humans (it’s profiles may be more workable).

]]> http://veryspatial.com/2006/08/the-hammer-for-every-nail/comment-page-1/#comment-210290 Sam A. Bacharach Tue, 15 Aug 2006 18:59:38 +0000 http://veryspatial.com/?p=1032#comment-210290 Your identification of a need for an ISO answer to data encoding is right on and it is being met as I write this: The OpenGIS (r) Geography Markup Language (GML) Encoding Specification from OGC is being processed by ISO TC 211 as ISO 19136. It is scheduled to be released for a Final Draft International Standard ballot this fall and should be published as an International Standard in 2007. Your identification of a need for an ISO answer to data encoding is right on and it is being met as I write this: The OpenGIS (r) Geography Markup Language (GML) Encoding Specification from OGC is being processed by ISO TC 211 as ISO 19136. It is scheduled to be released for a Final Draft International Standard ballot this fall and should be published as an International Standard in 2007.

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