Author: Devlin Bentley.
Email: devlin.bentley@gmail.com
A web application that will show Western Washington University students the fastest route to go between their classes.
Implemented in Python, Javascript, and utilizing AJAX and the <canvas> tag. WWU Route Finder is a proof of concept of an AJAX map that uses the <canvas> tag, AJAX, Javascript, and a Python back end. Click two buildings, and the Python back end, accessed using XMLHTTPRequest of course, shows you the shortest path between your start point and your destination.
The use of Python on the back end (and indeed the use of a back end at all) serves little purpose for a data set of this size, as it could easily be executed purely on the client side. Doing computations on the back end server is justifiable when a larger data set is needed. In such case an API such as NetworkX, which supports manipulation of graphs containing over a million nodes and 10 million edges, would be appropriate. The burden of transmitting such a graph over the internet would itself be overwhelming, and the inability to compile code down to the machine level would make operations on the graph extremely expensive.
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