I work in the GIS space, and I've even built some simular systems, such a multiplayer map editing.
Even with that background I'm having a hard time understand _what_ this really is?
Is it a git wrapper with some geospatial features?
Why git for geospatial at all?
I've worked in urban development for almost 10 years, and this was much needed. At several points I tried to implement a git worlflow for gis data since errors, rollbacks, and uncontrolled changes where incredibly common and sometimes very expensive. I failed because the miriad of formats. This projects hits a real need.
I did some interesting things with folders full of GeoJSON files. It seemed fortunate enough that GeoJSON is a well supported lowest-common denominator for a lot of tools (esp. web tools) and if a thing didn't take GeoJSON there was some simple middle tool (usually a quick Python script). Pretty-printed GeoJSON gives you okay-ish diffs and if you go to an extreme like single feature per GeoJSON file (like I said, folder full of GeoJSON) and have other tools (often Python scripts) to reconstruct/deconstruct layers from all the separate files, you get things like commits/PRs where you know at a glance exactly which features changed (from the file list).
Certainly a lot more work than this new project, but as the old saying goes I suppose you should never underestimate the database power of a folder full of files.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 23.9 ms ] threadEven with that background I'm having a hard time understand _what_ this really is? Is it a git wrapper with some geospatial features? Why git for geospatial at all?
Certainly a lot more work than this new project, but as the old saying goes I suppose you should never underestimate the database power of a folder full of files.