Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 9 An implementation of Mapstraction using Google Maps (
2014 Google)
©
Evaluation of Mapping APIs
APIs have been evaluated in a number of different ways (Bloch
2006
; Clarke
2004
;
de Souza et al.
2004
; Farooq and Zirkler
2010
; Gerken et al.
2011
; Tulach
2008
;
Wong and Hong
2007
). All of these studies have examined aspects related to API
development and provide guidelines for API evaluation. The following describes
alternative methods of evaluation for mapping APIs based on these and other
studies.
Execution Speed In theory, the speed of execution of an API would measure its
computational power, a measure of how well the code is written. APIs are mostly
based on JavaScript, a programming language that is interpreted by the browser.
The browser is compiling and executing the JavaScript code in a single step.
Differences between browser
s processing of JavaScript is thus much more signif-
icant than any differences in the quality of the API code.
'
A study undertaken by Weiser (
2010
) examined differences between mapping
APIs and showed major differences in the execution of JavaScript code. Microsoft
Internet Explorer (IE), the most-used browser, processed JavaScript code much
