Is it Monday Already?

September 13, 2010 7 Comments

Wait, what happened to 3 day weekends.  I guess you get one and then you expect them all the time.  Oh well…

Some interesting reading for a Monday morning:

ArcGISEditor for OSM – Randal looks at the ArcGIS Editor for OSM and concludes it is complicated, but powerful.  I all Esri tools (they are “scientific” mind you) nothing is ever simple, but if you can get your hands around it, powerful results happen.

FOSS4G 2010 Final Answer – Apparently there was a Geospatial conference going on somewhere.  They all kind of start blending in to each other, don’t they?

Making a Data Portal With WordPress – Content management is content management, right?  (bless his heart for trying to do this with WordPress)  Just goes to show that if you can hack your way around code, there isn’t anything you can’t accomplish (assuming your billable time isn’t an issue).

Gearing up for GIS in the Rockies – Time for the fall conference season to kick into high gear.  Front Range GIS is a unique community who do some really great things with both proprietary and open source tools (usually in combination).  Bummed I can’t go.

Why not GeoJSON? – Looks like France was good to Sean.  He’s got a great post up on ESRI’s use of JSON in their RESTful API.

Oh and way to represent SEC!

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Esri Releases Their GeoServices REST Specification

September 7, 2010 13 Comments

As was announced at the ESRI UC, the GeoServices REST Specification, Version 1.0 has hit the streets.

Services that follow the specification will “speak the same language” as the REST-ful Esri Web services. That means clients can consume them with the popular ArcGIS APIs for JavaScript, Flex, Silverlight, iOS, and Android; as well as other Esri client APIs. However, you don’t have to own or use any Esri software in order to implement the specification or to build a client that works with the services.

As you examine the specification, you’ll probably notice that it looks like the ArcGIS REST API. This is deliberate. The pattern we have used at Esri for exposing REST-ful GIS services has been embraced by thousands of developers who use the ArcGIS Web APIs. It is a simple and intuitive way of structuring and talking to GIS Web services. We wanted you to feel free to implement services that follow the same pattern.

Whether or not this is truly an open spec (and  not opening the debate as to how “RESTful” this spec really is), the rush begins for everyone to implement this spec on their own apps so they can be used with ESRI clients.

Jack opens his secret to getting RESTful with ArcGIS

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ESRI RESTful API 9.4

July 19, 2009 1 Comment

I didn’t get as much time to talk with ESRI about the RESTful API, but I did two things answered that were bothering me.

  • You will be able edit with the RESTful API.  Opens up the ability to edit ESRI Geodatabases with just about any client you can imagine.
  • You will be able to query and work with other tables in the geodatabase (tables don’t need to be joined to query them).  I always seem to have lots of related tables in my projects so this should lessen the need to roll my own ASP.NET connector to work with tables.

Bonus news is that the ESRI JavaScript API will support HTML 5 for some really slick web applications.  Of course this is all based on ArcGIS 9.4 which should roll into our hands the first half of 2010.

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ESRI posts David Chappell’s 2009 Developer Summit Keynote

April 7, 2009 5 Comments

If you only watch one keynote this year, make it this one.

Watch the video! What are you waiting for? Chinese New Year?

Watch the video! What are you waiting for? Chinese New Year?

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Sean Gillies on OGC WMTS

March 19, 2009 6 Comments

Sean is all over OGC’s Web Map Tiling Standard.

I have sent in a “public comment” advising the authors on how to better follow the REST style. To be honest, I’d rather the OGC stayed away from REST, but if it won’t, I’ll insist it’s done properly and doesn’t misinform mainstream GIS developers. I’ll even try to help as much as the OGC’s closed process will allow.

We talk about open standards quite a bit and when it comes to GIS software implementing them, OGC is usually what we see.  It would be a shame to see WMTS fail as much as WFS has in the marketplace because it is ill conceived.  Hopefully the OGC will take advantage of Sean’s comments to improve the spec.  The OGC comment process has to be better than this:

No, now go away or I shall taunt you a second time.

No, now go away or I shall taunt you a second time.

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RESTful GeoServer 1.7.3

March 11, 2009 2 Comments

On the heels of the 1.7.2 release, GeoServer 1.7.3 is now out.   Improvements to ArcSDE Raster support, RESTful interface, Excel support and of course GeoWebCache.  You know you want to get some of this…

Horray GIS!

Horray GIS!

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Is FTP access the best we can do?

March 10, 2009 13 Comments

I can almost predict that every conversation about data sharing will have one person stand up and declare, “Just give me FTP access and I’ll be fine”.  I used to think that way and while I probably still would like file based access to datasets, I just can’t see FTP being a viable data transfer method anymore.  Just it makes it easy to grab a data dump, but there isn’t anything that allows users to know if the data has been updated (other than I suppose checking the metadata).  So many times I see people using old data because they have no idea data has been updated.  Personally I don’t like the idea that I’m offering up spatial data web services for data I don’t control and most others should be worried as well.  Users want to grab data from the source, not some middle man who probably knows less about the data than the creator.

There has been a huge jump into SDI since the pork bandwagon started up in Washington and I’ll be honest…  I haven’t paid much attention.  One thing I am sure of is I don’t want to see something introduced that has two choices, WxS and FTP.  Data needs to be both discoverable and usable and I’m not sure WxS and FTP get us there.  WxS no matter what defenders might say is not discoverable and FTP is not secure and has no method of tracking changes.

AtomPub to me looks like the best method of publishing and sharing datasets.  There is a huge risk here of inventing something new when a superb solution already exists.  Workflows change quickly and WxS/FTP can’t adjust sprightly enough.  Read “How to GET a Cup of Coffee” and think about how easier this could all be.

Gatekeepers want to limit you to FTP/WxS so that you cant change the world...

Gatekeepers want to limit you to FTP/WxS so that you can't change the world.

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SOAP is for cleaning…

March 6, 2009 13 Comments

Of course this is not surprising in the least bit, but Google is abandoning their SOAP API to focus on their RESTful APIs.  Most developers, myself included, prefer working with RESTful services and I’m interested in seeing if other companies will start “retiring” their SOAP APIs for their newer RESTful ones.  ESRI, MapGuide, and GeoServer are all great RESTful implementations, but they are still young and immature.  Just looking at the ESRI ArcGIS Server Mashup Challenge submissions, you can see the sheer number of REST API, JSAPI, Flex API projects and the lack of Web ADF projects.  As these RESTful APIs get more mature, it is clear that ESRI SOAP APIs are destined to follow Google’s SOAP APIs into depreciation.

Even John Brown looked at ESRIs RESTful API for salvation.

Even John Brown looked at ESRI's RESTful API for salvation.

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