GIS Cartography — A Guide to Effective Map Design
I just finished reading a new book by Gretchen Peterson called GIS Cartography: A Guide to Effective Map Design and I really enjoyed it. Gretchen wrote this book independent of any GIS tools so that you can apply it anywhere, from ESRI and Autodesk to PowerPoint and Web Mapping. So much of computer books include sections on preferences, installation and best practices, that it takes away from actually learning key concepts. Cartography is critical to visualization of spatial data and with so many different ways to visualize that information these days, you need these key concepts to ensure that you are getting your message out.
Gretchen’s writing style was enjoyable and she was able to cover detailed concepts without losing my interest. I’m guessing because we come from similar GIS backgrounds, I really was able to follow her though process and better understand how I should look at GIS cartography. Another think I really liked was the ability pick the book up and find a section to review so I can see this being a great reference book as well.
The chapter on fonts was particularly enjoyable. So often I believe this is an area overlooked by GIS cartographers and can greatly affect the ability of readers to understand your maps. Color is another area that Gretchen covers and in great detail. The world is much more complicated than just polygons so she goes much deeper than most websites and GIS books have into how color affects your output.
GIS books aren’t cheap because they never do the volumes that general computing books do, but when you can apply them across multiple software packages and disciplines, you get much more value out of them. Gretchen’s book is something that you can use almost anywhere with any medium and won’t get out of date. That is a great value that most technical computing books overlook. GIS Cartography is a great resource to have and one that I’m glad that I have in my technical library. I’m guessing though that it will spend more time next to my computer than on the bookshelf. Flip through the pages at Google Books and see how valuable this book is. Great job Gretchen!
Adobe’s Views on HTML 5
As you can imagine, Adobe John Dowdell responded to the HTML 5 “flash killer” talk in a way only Adobe could.
It’s hard for Adobe to have an official opinion on whatever this consortium of minority browser vendors chooses to do… seeing what the final agreement turns out to be, and how it is eventually manifested in the world, both are prerequisites for practical tool-making.
I suppose when Microsoft becomes the minority browser to WebKit/Firefox then things might change? Guess we’ll see next year when it happens. So if my previous post didn’t excite you, maybe John’s will.
Hey if you like HTML 5, take a look at Flash
Adobe says, Hey if you like HTML 5, take a look at Flash
Adobe’s Views on HTML 5
As you can imagine, Adobe John Dowdell responded to the HTML 5 “flash killer” talk in a way only Adobe could.
It’s hard for Adobe to have an official opinion on whatever this consortium of minority browser vendors chooses to do… seeing what the final agreement turns out to be, and how it is eventually manifested in the world, both are prerequisites for practical tool-making.
I suppose when Microsoft becomes the minority browser to WebKit/Firefox then things might change? Guess we’ll see next year when it happens. So if my previous post didn’t excite you, maybe John’s will.
Hey if you like HTML 5, take a look at Flash
Adobe says, Hey if you like HTML 5, take a look at Flash
IronPython and ESRI ArcGIS
IronPythonMan to the rescue!
IronPythonMan to the rescue!
I’m surprised that IronPython doesn’t get more love in the ESRI development world. Beyond Matthew’s blog posts I can’t recall seeing anything really being done. Considering how important .NET is to ESRI, it wouldn’t hurt to see a little embrace of IronPython.
ArcObjects is hard enough to write with C#, so why not allow devs to use the simple Python. Of course Matthew proves you can do it yourself, but it seems like a great combo, writing by Python code for geoprocessing and IronPython code to work with ArcObjects. Heck, why not throw in a little IronRuby for those who roll that way?
I’d really like to see an ESRI wiki were devs can add their own help for those who want to extend ArcObjects more directions than just the C#/VB.NET/C++ ways currently offered.
IronPython and ESRI ArcGIS
IronPythonMan to the rescue!
IronPythonMan to the rescue!
I’m surprised that IronPython doesn’t get more love in the ESRI development world. Beyond Matthew’s blog posts I can’t recall seeing anything really being done. Considering how important .NET is to ESRI, it wouldn’t hurt to see a little embrace of IronPython.
ArcObjects is hard enough to write with C#, so why not allow devs to use the simple Python. Of course Matthew proves you can do it yourself, but it seems like a great combo, writing by Python code for geoprocessing and IronPython code to work with ArcObjects. Heck, why not throw in a little IronRuby for those who roll that way?
I’d really like to see an ESRI wiki were devs can add their own help for those who want to extend ArcObjects more directions than just the C#/VB.NET/C++ ways currently offered.
The ESRI Web ADF 9.3
Remember this post Count that as the most popular post ever on my blog (so much for a positive post being my watermark). Anyway Doron Yaacoby has followed up almost a year and a half later with another look at where ESRI has taken the Web ADF since then.
Almost none of the issues I addressed in my original post were fixed. The API is still overly complex. Resources, functionalities and all these so-called abstractions remain in place, emphasizing the strength of the JavaScript API’s simplicity. And yes, there are still about a billion classes that are named ‘Converter’ in the API. It seems like ESRI insists that you write the entire namespace before every class you use.
Yea that was probably predictable, but I don’t think any of it matters. We’ve all moved beyond the Web ADFs and on to the REST APIs (Flex, JavaScript and Silverlight). Really though I’m amazed at how much our web development platform has changed in that time, we all can agree developing with ESRI is much more enjoyable than it was and I’m wagering most of us forget there is a Web ADF out there anymore. I can’t wait until the ESRI UC to see what the future holds in store.
The killing of .NET and Java on the web continues unabated