This is a short but sweet tale of the fun you can have with FOSS4G and ideas sparking off each other. It all started when I attended the GeoTools DataStore Workshop on the first day:
Just finished implementing the tutorial CSV data store in GeoToolsQ Next stop SOSI support directly in GeoServer? #foss4g
— Robert Nordan (@robpvn) September 14, 2015
SOSI is a Norwegian data format from 1987, by the way. So I was mostly kidding. But then a wild Open Source appeared!
@robpvn in case you need a SOSI parser in Java. https://t.co/8xk3vpX1iR
— Tore Halset (@torehalset) September 14, 2015
Turns out that it was exactly what I needed for a quick leg up on the required code, so I hit my hotel room for a couple of hours, copied code from the workshop (that is to say, I applied my skills learnt at the workshop), and tah-dah! We had a working plugin.
@torehalset Tah-dah! Made a wrapper and now it works, sortof! #foss4g pic.twitter.com/CinopSrXNI
— Robert Nordan (@robpvn) September 14, 2015
Now, it’s horribly hacky and not something you’d want to use for anything serious, but it was great fun and an example of how quickly you can make things work with Open Source.
I put it on GitHub for those who are interested in having a look. I’m sure looking forward to the rest of the conference!