Future expansion

Does it have to be Wap?

As has been seen in this thesis, Wap has serious problems. The general consensus in the UK is that Wap has not taken off and this has been borne out by the author’s personal experiences: people either don’t know how to work Wap phones or are unwilling to spend the time needed to create a Wap connection. Even worse is the difficulty of generating revenue from a Wap site: as the saying goes "You can write the best Wap site in London and still starve in a gutter".

Now things may change but in case it doesn’t, the programs have been written with the seventh design principle of separation of concerns in mind. This means that if a cHTML reply is required (cHTML is the language used by the popular Japanese iMode system, which unlike the European Wap system is thriving) instead of a WML reply, then this can be done by just adding a new program.

Does it have to be English?

Again, no. Separation of concerns means that it would be relatively straightforward to output a reply in Japanese, French or whatever. All that would be needed would be new translation program and a language-specific route file.

Does it have to be routes by foot?

Again, no: the programs are expandable to include routes by car, train, plane or indeed any mode of transport and in any combination.

Does it have to be postcodes?

It should be pointed out that the system’s not strictly limited to postcodes. The system works by getting the nearest nodes to the input details and while a postcode is good for the input details, they don’t have to be postcodes. For example, it’s perfectly possible to type in "the corner of Keble Road and Banbury Road, Oxford, UK" as the origin. Now that’s difficult to type in and process, but it is possible to do it that way by just changing the "getnode" program.

Does the location have to be entered?

Perhaps the most obvious fault with the system is that the present location has to be entered: shouldn’t the phone know where it is? We are beginning to see mobile phones on the market with Global Positioning System chips installed, and those phones definitely know where they are. Please note that the system has been written in such a way (separation of concerns again) as to cope with this development as it arises.