GIS is a Supermarket
Last week I mentioned that GIS applications are so hard to use in workflows. It’s like an old Yakov Smirnoff joke:
In the real world, software works for you. In GIS, you work for the software!
It’s not to say you can’t get value out of traditional GIS packages, just that you’re locked into doing things their way. I was just about to write a clever analogy but I think I’ll keep this simple. When in your GIS package, you generally are limited to only their processing tools. While this does allow you to gain familiarity with their use, you end up making compromises to get things done. You can buy your groceries at the gas station convenience store, but you have to work hard to make it all happen (wait, did I just use analogy anyway?). It’s at the supermarket where you can choose from 20 different kinds of marinara sauce to get exactly the right one.
I really think GIS is like a supermarket. When you do your projects outside of these proprietary GIS applications, it gives you the freedom to pick and choose which analytical libraries you want to get each analysis done. I can use GDAL, Arc.py, sci.py, R and even some Erdas to get my work done. Just how I’d make dinner, pulling different ingredients from different companies. Just like some nice ziti, you end up with great output and something that works wonderful with your work flows.
My feelings are GIS software should adapt to how I work, not the other way around. You should too…
GIS is a Supermarket
Last week I mentioned that GIS applications are so hard to use in workflows. It’s like an old Yakov Smirnoff joke:
In the real world, software works for you. In GIS, you work for the software!
It’s not to say you can’t get value out of traditional GIS packages, just that you’re locked into doing things their way. I was just about to write a clever analogy but I think I’ll keep this simple. When in your GIS package, you generally are limited to only their processing tools. While this does allow you to gain familiarity with their use, you end up making compromises to get things done. You can buy your groceries at the gas station convenience store, but you have to work hard to make it all happen (wait, did I just use analogy anyway?). It’s at the supermarket where you can choose from 20 different kinds of marinara sauce to get exactly the right one.
I really think GIS is like a supermarket. When you do your projects outside of these proprietary GIS applications, it gives you the freedom to pick and choose which analytical libraries you want to get each analysis done. I can use GDAL, Arc.py, sci.py, R and even some Erdas to get my work done. Just how I’d make dinner, pulling different ingredients from different companies. Just like some nice ziti, you end up with great output and something that works wonderful with your work flows.
My feelings are GIS software should adapt to how I work, not the other way around. You should too…
Ian White Should be on Your Hangout
We go live at 10 am MST.
We’ll be talking on the IRC channel again so either use the IRC Web Client or better yet, point your IRC client to #hwjf on chat.freenode.net.
Don’t Be Hating on Mercator
The hipsters are hating on Mercator all over twitter and the blogs. I don’t know about you but I’m grateful for Mercator every time I travel. I seem to move left and right from Phoenix on a map. Plus who cares about Greenland? Let them have their big map, you don’t want to live there anyway.
MercatorFTW
Look, if you’d rather live in a world of the Bonne projection I won’t stop you. I’ll just come find you on my practical Mercator map.
Map CC-By-SA: Strebe
This Week’s Hangout:: They Tell Me Ian White Needs to be on Your Hangout
Well it’s time to start things back up, Friday, February 1st at 10am MST. Hangouts With James Fee: Attitudes Across Latitudes will have our first guest since “the break”. Ian White of Urban Mapping joins me to talk about why he was the last host of This Week in Maps (i can’t even find a link to it) podcast to join my hangout. WeoGeo was kind enough to give me all the code for the webpages, but I’ve been too busy to get that all back up. In the meantime I’m doing this old-school on Google+ Events. Just go to the event page and it will take care of everything else.
HWJF
As always we’ll be talking on IRC. Join #hwjf on chat.freenote.com or online.
This Week’s Hangout:: They Tell Me Ian White Needs to be on Your Hangout
Well it’s time to start things back up, Friday, February 1st at 10am MST. Hangouts With James Fee: Attitudes Across Latitudes will have our first guest since “the break”. Ian White of Urban Mapping joins me to talk about why he was the last host of This Week in Maps (i can’t even find a link to it) podcast to join my hangout. WeoGeo was kind enough to give me all the code for the webpages, but I’ve been too busy to get that all back up. In the meantime I’m doing this old-school on Google+ Events. Just go to the event page and it will take care of everything else.
HWJF
As always we’ll be talking on IRC. Join #hwjf on chat.freenote.com or online.