I’ve Come to Praise ArcObjects, Not Kill It

June 24, 2011 Leave a Comment

OK, I’m the first one to dance on ArcObjects grave[ref]In fact I suspect I’ll take my anti-love of ArcObjects to my grave[/ref], but others seem to like it.

… This all comes from the following fact: being a complete ignorant about ArcObjects and the ArcGIS API, I have been able to create the corresponding SEXTANTE bindings from scratch in less time than I needed to create any other bindings before. That means less time than the gvSIG bindings (an application that I knew pretty well), and way less than the OpenJUMP or Geotools ones (both of them softwares that I had worked with before, at least once).

This is basically due to the clean, well designed and perfectly documented API of ArcGIS, which, along with the additional Eclipse plugins, makes it very easy to develop new plugins and extensions for the software.

Now, let me just tell you first off.  Sextante coming to ArcGIS — awesome!  But the real meat of the matter here is if there is a well documented API, developers just love it[ref]No matter how crazy the ArcObjects API may be[/ref].  That is the real less for any project, proprietary or open source.  Documentation matters!

In API hell, as long as there is documentation we’ll all be fine!

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ArcGIS 9.3.1 Roundup

May 4, 2009 12 Comments

Well got my copy late last week and others are reporting that they’ve received it as well.  9.3.1 isn’t revolutionary, more evolutionary in nature so there isn’t that, “I MUST HAVE IT” feeling with it.  And you know what?  That is exactly what we need at this point, a nice solid release.

Some blog posts about 9.3.1:

I’m sure we’ll see more information in the next week.  Remember you can get the “What’s new in 9.3.1″ from ESRI’s servers.  We haven’t installed it yet, but hopefully there will be a chance later this week.

ArcGIS 9.3.1 is on its way. YEAH!

ArcGIS 9.3.1.... YEAH!

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Safe FME with Open Source and ESRI’s new developer blog

April 9, 2009 4 Comments

Michael Weisman wrote up an informative blog post on how you can use FME with open source software and tools.  The killer example here for most folks is the ability to get open source data formats and servers into ArcGIS Desktop.

The wide range of formats FME can write to can also allow you to send data into open source platforms from popular non-open source back-ends like SDE or Oracle. FDO can be used to pull data from any format into MapGuide Open Source, and with FME Server you can stream live data out of any source we support into a format which is compatible with your open source client.

Even the Easter Bunny wants to consume open standards

In addition ESRI is re-branding their ArcObjects Blog to ArcGIS Developer Blog.  Personally I think it was a good decision, ArcObjects is such a small part of the ESRI Developer community and they need to continue their progress of reaching out to the masses that deal with RESTful APIs, Flex and Silverlight, Python and the JSAPIs.

Time to put that baby to REST...

Time to put that baby to REST...

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More ESRI ArcGIS 9.3 News

July 2, 2008 21 Comments

It looks like ESRI finally put the 9.3 help publicly and you no longer need a password to access it (HT Jithen & Mapperz).

Welcome to ArcGIS Desktop Help 9.3

The ESRI Resource Center is available as well. Unlike the disorganized ArcGIS Support pages, these are focused on the ESRI product you are working with. I’m really happy to see these resource pages, but I’m curious where they fit within the whole ESRI Support and ESRI EDN sites. I suspect that I won’t be using EDN as much as I’ll be using these new resource pages. At any rate the look great and are easy to use; a welcome change from the Support and EDN pages.

UPDATE: It looks like the resource center is still blocked for those who were not in the beta. Someone at ESRI forgot to flip the switch…

There is also a “What’s New in ArcGIS 9.3″ Podcast. The direct link to the podcast is here. Why they make it so hard to get to these podcasts are beyond me. Shouldn’t they be available on the resource pages?

Lastly, while I’m getting ready to deploy ArcSDE ArcGIS Server Enterprise with SQL Server 2008, many are very interested in what PostgreSQL brings to the ArcGIS stable at 9.3. Bill Dollins has been working on a couple blog posts about Using ArcSDE 9.3 with PostgreSQL. Just seeing ArcMap push to PostgreSQL and then using uDIG to view the data is powerful. Says Bill:

…depending on how you implement it, ArcSDE for PostgreSQL can provide interoperability between ArcGIS and an open-source stack. uDig can be leveraged in a pinch to edit data loaded into ArcSDE using the PostGIS geometry type, allowing you to expand to meet demand.

I think many organizations will look long and hard at migrating their SQL Server or Oracle implementations to Postgres.


ESRI ArcGIS 9.3 with all that great Swedish quirkiness

(Photo by dmurray)

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ESRI ArcGIS 9.3 ships tomorrow

June 25, 2008 76 Comments

GISUser.com has a news release posted that probably was meant to go out tomorrow, but “today” ArcGIS 9.3 ships. (HT Bill Dollins)

So now go bug your local ESRI rep asking them when it will show up.


Caption not needed

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