Re: [udig-devel] Plea to avoid workarounds for broken servers

[Richard Gould <rgould@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi James,

> I'd just like to make a plea that no-one adds workarounds for broken
> servers into the codebase, (I have no indication that anyone has done
> this yet, but I just want to be sure no-one is even slightly tempted!)
>  
Too late. David's XML implementation allows quite a large amount of 
flexibility on the parsing end, allowing quite a few misbehaving servers 
to be read properly. I have already added in some fixes that allow us to 
parse non-standards compliant servers (and they are not hacks).

> A broken server is just that, and any attempt to support or work round
> servers that are off spec will lead to a slow but painfull death for
> interoprability as a whole.  It is tempting to want to give the 'best
> user experience' by letting our users see the content of broken
> servers but if everyone did that we might as well not have standards.
>  
My initial instinct is to disagree with you on this one, but I am 
definately willing to heed your wisdom, as you definately have more 
experience with this sort of thing compared to myself. It seems to me 
that the value of being able to parse nearly every single server out 
there is more than strictly enforcing the standards. If someone wants to 
use the code to communicate with a specific server they have in mind, 
they might be turned away if they find we cannot parse it. It is 
probably less work on their behalf to find a client that *does* parse it 
than contacting the administrator of the server and informing them of 
their standards deviance.

It also doesn't mix well with uDig's goals of as much interoperability 
as possible. A possible fix for this would be to separate the WMS plugin 
into a strictly standards compliant section (GeoTools) and a more 
relaxed version (uDig).

Richard