My favorite technology used in my Capstone project so far has to be mapbox-gl. It’s an API for Javascript where gl stands for graphics library, similar to OpenGL. It has been fairly easy to get it set up in our project, and we plan to use it to plot fire stations and their various coverage areas around cities.
The technology is used to display 2D and 3D maps with vector graphics in the browser client side. It is completely free in our use case, though with more users it eventually would have a monthly cost. It could be slightly easier to implement as there was some pain in finding out how to add layers and plot geoJSON data on the map. Some more sample projects might be added to their GitHub for users to get started.
I feel though it is definitely a reminder of how in programming one shouldn’t repeat work unless needed, and how things can build on one another. There are countless applications that need maps, and this one has likely had thousands of hours of development time that our capstone project and its sponsor can take advantage of – without needing to reinventing the wheel and implement maps from scratch ourselves.
In terms of AI, we are not using it specifically in our project. I have personally used ChatGPT for help in coding a specific section or advice on how to approach something. This can have the advantage of being able to rapidly prototype something. I have also noticed that it sources its answers from stackoverflow, so it is akin to being able to look at multiple stackoverflow posts at once.
The disadvantage of course is that it can often be incorrect, and this can have the cost of becoming reliant on the tool, as opposed to learning how to read documentation by one self. I do believe that is had made me a better programmer in that is is just another tool that can be used as a resource while programming, in addition to using official documentation.
Our application’s API could potentially use AI to make recommendations on where to place a fire station. Currently, I believe it will just use some form of Djikstra’s algorithm or built in mapbox-gl function to calculate distances from a fire station.
