I am new to mapping and have gone through the V3 API tutorial and just heard about mapstraction. I wanted to know, which would be better to learn, considering that V3 is a complete write up of the google maps api? I understand that mapstraction gives u more flexibilty but does the current version of Mapstraction take advantage of the new V3 features?
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I've been using Mapstraction fairly intensively on a couple of projects.
On the plus side it's a very well written abstraction layer and works tremendously well. The code is well structured, logical and handles everything you'd need for basic mapping. With a bit of effort it's easily understandable and can be extended. Also the underlying bespoke map objects are still accessible, and you can write specific code against them.
Against that there are a few issues. Of course because it is an abstraction layer if you want to do anything specific to features unique to say google maps, then there is additional effort required over a straight implementation. Bing maps is also only currently implemented on v6 instead of the improved v7.
Personally I find the swap between Google, Bing and OpenSourceMap a real positive, especially in view of licencing issues and prices with Google and to a lesser extent Bing.
So if you need a lot of google-specific features and can handle the licence issues then go with google, otherwise I'd recommend mapstraction.
I would recommend against using abstracting mapping API unless you have specific requirements to switch mapping providers often.