Minds Behind Maps Volodymyr Agafonkin: The Story of Leaflet, Building the Simplest Mapping Library & Life in Ukraine
Volodymyr Agafonkin is the creator of Leaflet, an open-source JS mapping library started in 2008 that is used pretty much everywhere on the Internet today. We end up nerding out on what makes building simple open source software & rendering maps online tricky but also so endlessly interesting. Volodymyr lives in Ukraine, a country shaken by a war for the past few years, which we also talk about.
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About Volodymyr
Shownotes
Note: Links to books are Amazon Affiliate links. I earn a small commission if you buy any of these books.
- Leaflet
- Mapbox blogpost on adaptive map projections
- CloudMade
- How Simplicity Will Save GIS
- Books & Podcasts
- The Storyteller by Dave Grohl (Affiliate Link)
- My Effin’ Life by Geddy Lee (Affiliate Link)
- Reply All podcast
- Search Engine podcast
- Heavyweight podcast
Timestamps
(00:00) - Intro
(01:50) - Sponsor: Nimbo
(03:26) - Volodymyr Describes Himself
(04:22) - The story behind Leaflet
(13:31) - Cloudmade Backstory
(16:42) - From closed software to open source
(23:43) - Maintaining high quality code
(27:56) - Cloudmade today
(31:21) - Leaflet, funding, sustainable
(35:09) - Raster vs Vector maps
(41:34) - Map projections
(46:36) - Current main challenges to mapping
(50:52) - Future of Leaflet
(51:54) - Leaflet and Ukraine
(01:05:39) - Book & Podcast recommendation
(01:09:35) - Support the podcast on Patreon