Ruby and Geocoders

[Charlie Savage]

So we have our own home-spun code for talking to the Yahoo geocoder, but
want to hook into Google. Thus it seemed like a good time to take a
look at the new Gems that have appeared in the last year.

Anyone have any preference between:

Graticle (http://graticule.rubyforge.org/)

GeoKit (http://geokit.rubyforge.org/)

RobotCoop (http://dev.robotcoop.com/)

We're just after geocoding - no distance (we use GEOS), no Postgresql
geometry types (we have our own based on GEOS).

Or we could expand what we have, but that seems a bit silly.

Charlie

[Andrew Turner]

Wrote this response a week ago - but different email address so didn't
get posted:

--
I like both Graticule and GeoKit.

The bigger difference was that GeoKit did support fall-back, but now
Graticule does as well. Both are well maintained by great peeps.

I've added Disk/Mem caching to GeoKit and probably should throw that
back out into the wild.

> smime.p7s
> 4KDownload

[Steve Midgley]

I wanted to mention a recent addition to the Ruby Geocoding world
(mine!)

You can find more info and the link to the install page here:

http://www.misuse.org/science/2007/09/25/geox-rails-geocoding-plugin/

I'd love input on GeoX even if you don't decide to use it. It's built
for Rails but barely. If you need it for Ruby-only applications let me
know and I can strip it down for you.

Steve

> smime.p7s
> 4KDownload

[James Stewart]

On 22 Oct 2007, at 08:12, Steve Midgley wrote:

On Oct 3, 1:14 pm, Charlie Savage <c...@savagexi.com> wrote:

So we have our own home-spun code for talking to the Yahoo geocoder, but

want to hook into Google.  Thus it seemed like a good time to take a

look at the new Gems that have appeared in the last year.

Anyone have any preference between:

Graticle (http://graticule.rubyforge.org/)

GeoKit (http://geokit.rubyforge.org/)

RobotCoop (http://dev.robotcoop.com/)

We're just after geocoding - no distance (we use GEOS), no Postgresql

geometry types (we have our own based on GEOS).

Or we could expand what we have, but that seems a bit silly.

I wanted to mention a recent addition to the Ruby Geocoding world

(mine!)

You can find more info and the link to the install page here:

http://www.misuse.org/science/2007/09/25/geox-rails-geocoding-plugin/

I'd love input on GeoX even if you don't decide to use it. It's built for Rails but barely. If you need it for Ruby-only applications let me know and I can strip it down for you.

I've just joined this list after Andrew Turner suggested posting a link to my recent review of GeoX. You can find it at:

http://jystewart.net/process/2007/10/rails-geo-plugins-geox/

I've also been writing up notes on all the other rails geo plugins I've come across. You can find a comparison chart and links at:

http://foss4r.dyndns.org/trac/wiki/ComparingRailsGeoPlugins

James.

-- 

James Stewart - Web Consultant and Developer

Work: http://jystewart.net/process/