Software development can sometimes appear to be a black art to those who don’t work in that area. In reality, once you know a little more it’s not really a black art at all, so let’s deconstruct the mapping application we’re building and explain how it actually works.
Consider the following diagram.
It’s got five key parts, each one doing a different job and communicating with another part.
1. You - You control the application, you tell the application what you want it to do. Do you want to zoom in to the map? Do you want to zoom out, pan left or display a particular point? You tell the application what to do via the web browser.
2. Google - Google provides the base map on which data is supplied, it also provides an API (application programming interface, more on these at a later date) that lets us tell the map what to do.
3. Web server - this provides information to your web browser telling it what to display and how to display it, it tells your web browser to get the maps from Google, it tells your computer web browser where to draw stuff on the map and it tells your web browser how to lay out the page and what colours to use.
4. Database - the database is where lots of information is stored. It’s where the web server finds out what to display: if it’s a point on the map, it’s held in the database. Likewise if it’s network coverage, it’s held in the database.
5.The internet - this links everything else together. Using the internet lets you communicate with the other parts of the system, and lets the other parts of the system communicate with each other as well.
Each of these parts of the system, work together because they communicate using common and open standards and, like you, the programmer simply tells each part what to do in response to what you ask the application for. In telling the application what to do, the programmer is not using plain English, they are using programming languages, and in this case a mix of programming languages is used to bring all the parts together.
So that sounds a little less like black magic now, right?
5 Comments
Actually, it’s based on ZoomIn maps by ProjectX: not Google at all.
The application is currently under redevelopment and is being built using the Google Maps API.
Well, thank heavens for that - Project X’s website and applications crashes the Safari browser on my Mac every time I use it. When I tried alerting them to this problem their developer’s response was basically, ‘Get a PC’. Since they’re the *only* site that I have ever surfed to that have managed to do that to my browser, I’m glad you’re moving away from them and towards Google.
While I have not experienced any issues with Zoomin or the ProjectX API on MAC or PC (I am not a fan of Safari mind and never use it); the new application is being tested across all major browsers. The developers are big fans of Safari and I know they are making sure Safari users will be well catered for.
Yes, Google Maps API is a great tool…hope Google isn’t going to place their ads there