GIS Developer Job Profile – Automate GIS by Building Code

GIS Developer Job Information
If you’re going to be working as a GIS software developer…


…you’re pretty much going to be a software developer with a concentration in GIS.

Programmers need to be focused because you’re going to be writing, examining and error-checking code.

GIS developers need to learn fast on their feet.

Today, we examine in detail the life of a GIS developer:

How do GIS developers salaries stack up around the world?
What is the average GIS developer salary?
GIS development is a growing field in Geomatics. By writing code you can make the machine do what you want.

GIS developers enjoy higher salaries than an average GIS position.

These positions are usually accompanied with a computer science degree or certificate.

Read More: GIS Salary Expectations: Climb the GIS Career Ladder

GIS Developer Job Advantages/Disadvantages
GIS developers, in general, have more job stability. This is because software development and computer programming are growing fields.




It’s easier for GIS programmers to land a job because it takes a highly skilled individual to write code and working programs. No two developers will write the same code. Building an application used by people is often a great feeling for programmers.

GIS programmers have higher pay rates. But it can really take years to be able to program well.

From level of importance, here are some of the programming languages you can expect: Javascript, Python, C# and .NET. Most widely used Visual Basic, Python, HTML, Javascript, XML and Flex. Reduction in amount in aging Arc Macro Language (AML) and Avenue.

The Primary Job Duties of a GIS Developer

What are the primary tasks of a GIS developer?

• Programming is the process of writing code and automating redundant GIS processes. Typical programming languages in GIS are Python, SQL, C++, Visual Basic and Java. (GIS Programming, Web Development & Design, Software Application Development, Software Application Lifestyle)
• Spatial Analysis uses techniques to manipulate, extract, locate and analyze geographic data. Spatial analysis examples include buffering, clipping and exploring the relationships between map feature. (GIS Analysis, GIS Modeling, Data Integration & Conversion, Data Analysis, Geocoding, Geomatics)
• Database management offers insight on how to store and extract information from structured sets of geographic data. (Database Development, Data Management, Database Administration, Data Management Services, Asset Management Consulting)
• Web Mapping is the process of interactively displaying, processing or analyzing spatial content on the world wide web.

Complimentary Job Duties

• Cartography is the study of creating maps. The origin comes from charta – “tablet or leaf of paper” and graph – “to draw”. (GIS Cartography, Information Management, Softcopy Mapping, Web Mapping, GIS Mapping, ArcGIS Map Design, Quality control/assurance)
• Remote sensing involves satellite or aerial imagery to map the Earth. Remote sensing is the study of attaining data without physically being there. (Remote Sensing Analysis, Satellite/Airphoto Interpretation, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), Soil Classification)

Example GIS Developer Tasks

• Develop, test, debug and maintain an array of custom web based GIS applications, tools and supporting web services using standard software lifecycle processes
• Support the infrastructure by maintaining and developing new capabilities in Microsoft .Net.
• Develop software in an agile development process by working with stakeholders to refine developed products.
• Perform web and mobile application development using JavaScript, HTML5, CSS, AJAX for the Esri ArcGIS platform
• Provide support, troubleshooting, modifications, enhancements and maintenance for existing GIS applications, scripts, tools and web services.
• Create and maintain system related documentation.

Accompanying Software
From level of importance, here are some of the programming languages you can expect: Javascript, Python, C# and .NET.

Most widely used Visual Basic, Python, HTML, Javascript, XML and Flex. Reduction in amount in aging Arc Macro Language (AML) and Avenue.

Source: GIS Geography

Oracle Announces General Availability of MySQL 5.7

Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) today announced the general availability of MySQL 5.7, the latest version of the world's most popular open source database. The new version delivers greater performance, scalability and manageability, plus enhanced NoSQL capabilities with JSON support and MySQL Router, which makes it easy to connect applications to multiple MySQL databases.

"MySQL 5.7 delivers a wide range of innovations allowing developers, database administrators and DevOps teams to build and manage next-generation Web and cloud-based applications capable of processing ever increasing volumes of data," said Tomas Ulin, vice president, MySQL Engineering, Oracle. "MySQL 5.7 builds upon Development Milestone Releases that have enabled users to preview, test and provide feedback during the development process -- and as a result, this release has been a collaborative process involving many members of the MySQL community."

Ulin will provide an overview of what's new in MySQL 5.7 during the upcomingMySQL Central @ OpenWorld "State of the Dolphin" address in San Francisco on Monday, October 26 at 4.00 pm. Additionally, a webcast will be held on November 11, 2015, at 9.00 a.m. US Pacific Time.

"Booking.com's initial testing of the Development Milestone Releases has shown promising improvements that will enable us to perform online configuration and schema changes with less downtime," said Nicolai Plum, senior systems architect, Booking.com. "The multi-source and parallel replication improvements in MySQL 5.7 GA will help us to continue scaling our global e-commerce business with ease and we look forward to deploying it soon."

Key enhancements in MySQL 5.7, which deliver greater performance and scalability, include:

• Enhanced Speed: In benchmark tests using SysBench Read-only Point-Selects, at 1,024 connections, MySQL 5.7 delivered 1,600,000 queries per second (QPS) -- 3x faster than MySQL 5.6.
• Optimized InnoDB: New capabilities include increased performance and concurrency, enhanced on-line operations, spatial indexes, native partitioning and more.
• More Robust Replication: Enhancements to MySQL's replication features include multi-source replication, enhanced Global Transaction Identifiers (GTIDs), and improved multi-threaded slaves for better scalability and availability.
• Enhanced Optimizer: A new MySQL optimizer dynamic cost model provides better query performance and greater user control. 

Primary manageability enhancements within MySQL 5.7 include:

• New Native JSON Data Type and JSON Functions: Allows for efficient and flexible storage, search and manipulation of schema-less data. Enhancements include a new internal binary format, support for easy integration within SQL, and index management on the JSON Documents using generated columns.
• Performance Schema: Enables instrumentation for memory, transactions, stored routines, prepared statements, replication and locks.
• MySQL SYS Schema: Provides helper objects that answer common performance, health, usage and monitoring questions.
• Improved Security: Delivers easier and safer instance initialization, setup and management.
• Expanded Geographic Information System (GIS) Support for Mobile Applications: Provides spatial index support in InnoDB, GeoJSON and GeoHash support. 

Also now generally available is the new MySQL Router, which simplifies application development by intelligently routing queries to MySQL databases for increased performance and uptime. MySQL Router also provides cross-language support for MySQL Fabric, making it simpler to manage groups of MySQL databases and delivering both high availability and scalability through automated data sharding.

For early testing and feedback, MySQL Group Replication is available athttp://labs.mysql.com. Group Replication delivers active/active write-anywhere replication clusters to MySQL, with support for automatic conflict detection and resolution.

MySQL 5.7 is scheduled to be available for download athttp://dev.mysql.com/downloads/ on October 26, 2015. Terms, conditions and restrictions apply.

Additional Information

MySQL Central @ OpenWorld Sessions
Webcast: What's New in MySQL 5.7, November 11, 2015 at 9.00 am PT
Webcast: New Replication Features in MySQL 5.7, November 24, 2015 at 9.00 am PT
MySQL Labs
Join MySQL on Facebook and follow @MySQL on Twitter.



About Oracle OpenWorld 

Oracle OpenWorld 2015 delivers the ultimate cloud experience. The industry's most important business conference includes thousands of educational sessions and features demos and exhibitions from hundreds of partners and customers from around the world showcasing Oracle's comprehensive cloud offerings, including an integrated stack of applications, platform and infrastructure services, as well as converged systems and industry solutions. Tens of thousands of in-person attendees and millions online gain valuable product and industry-specific insight to help them transform their businesses with Oracle. Oracle OpenWorld 2015 is being held October 25 through October 29 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. For more information; to register; or to watch Oracle OpenWorld keynotes, sessions, and more, visit Oracle OpenWorld 2015. Join the Oracle OpenWorld discussion on Twitter #oow15,Facebook, and the Oracle OpenWorld blog.

About Oracle 

Oracle offers a comprehensive and fully integrated stack of cloud applications and platform services. For more information about Oracle (NYSE: ORCL), visitwww.oracle.com.

Trademarks 

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

The preceding is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described for Oracle's products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle Corporation.


Contact Info Teri Whitaker Oracle +1.650.506.9914 Email Contact

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Geoprocessing with Python

Manning Publications has a new Python programming book “Geoprocessing with Python“. As part of of the Manning Early Access Program (MEAP), sections of the books are being made available now. Written by Chris Gerard, a Research Associate for the RS/GIS Lab at the Utah State University for over a decade. The book covers geoprocessing with Python using open source libraries. The first introductory chapter is available for free.

Geospatial data is hard to ignore. Nearly every car, phone, or camera has a GPS sensor, and aerial photos, satellite imagery, and data representing political boundaries, roads, rivers, and streams are available for free download from many websites. Geoprocessing is the science of reading, analyzing, and presenting geospatial data programmatically. The Python language, along with dozens of open source libraries and tools, makes it possible to take on professional geoprocessing tasks without investing in expensive proprietary packages like ArcGIS and MapInfo.

Geoprocessing with Python teaches you how to use the Python programming language along with free and open source tools to read, write, and process geospatial data. You’ll learn how to access available data sets to make maps or perform your own analyses using free and open source tools like the GDAL, Shapely, and Fiona Python modules. You’ll master core practices like handling multiple vector file formats, editing and manipulating geometries, applying spatial and attribute filters, working with projections, and performing basic analyses on vector data. You’ll also learn how to create geospatial data, rather than just consuming it. The book also covers how to manipulate and analyze raster data, such as aerial photographs, satellite images, and digital elevation models.

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Adding Real-Time Weather Data from OpenWeatherMap: QGIS Python Programming CookBook

BY PACKT BOOKS




Learn how to add real-time weather data from OpenWeatherMap in QGIS using Python from this section as part of this preview chapter, Creating Dynamic Maps from QGIS Python Programming CookBook. With 140 short, reusable recipes to automate geospatial processes in QGIS, the QGIS Python Programming CookBook teaches readers how to use Python and QGIS to create and transform data, produce appealing GIS visualizations, and build complex map layouts.
Adding Real-Time Weather Data from OpenWeatherMap

Real-time data is one of the most exciting data types you can add to a modern map. Most data producers make data available through Open GIS Consortium (OGC) standards. One such example is OpenWeatherMap, which offers an OGC Web Map Service (WMS) for different real-time weather data layers. In this recipe, we’ll access that service to access a real-time weather data layer.

Getting ready
The only preparation needed for this recipe is to open the QGIS Python Console by clicking the Plugins menu and selecting PythonConsole.

How to do it…
We will add a WMS weather data layer for precipitation to a QGIS map.

1. First we specify the parameters of the service for the service:service = ‘crs=EPSG:900913&dpiMode=7&featureCount=10&format=image/png&layers=precipitation&styles=&url=http://wms.openweathermap.org/service’
2. Next we just create the raster layer specifying wms as the type:rlayer = QgsRasterLayer(service, “precip”, “wms”)
3. Finally we add the precipitation layer to the map:

How it works…
A WMS request is typically a HTTP GET request with all of the parameters as part of the URL. In PyQGIS, you use a URL-encoded format but specify the parameters separate from the URL.The following map image shows the output of the precipitation layer in QGIS.

QGIS Python Programming CookBook

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Python and GIS Resources

BY CAITLIN DEMPSEY MORAIS



Find resources to web sites about Python scripting to use in GIS. Learn how to use Python to expand your geographic information system. Esri uses Python as its scripting language for ArcGIS and the language can be found in many open source GIS applications. Also see: Learning Programming for GIS for general Python resources.

Python is a scripting language incorporated into many GIS software applications such as ArcGIS and QGIS and is used to automate geoprocessing tasks. Python scripts are essentially a command-based script containing data types, statements, and functions that make up the geoprocessing instructions. Python files are denoted with the .py file extension.
Using Python in ArcGIS

Within ArcGIS, there are two options for working with and running python scripts: directly within ArcMap using the python window, or within an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) such as PythonWin.

Python can be run directly within ArcGIS by clicking on the Python button found on the standard toolbar. By clicking the button, ArcMap’s python window opens. The python window can be docked by dragging it to the toolbar or can be floated on top of ArcMap. The python window is divide into two sections: the python prompt section and the help and syntax window. The python prompt is found on the left side of the python window and this is the section where python prompts can be typed into or python scripts run. The right side of the window provides information with syntax information that show up when a command is typed in on the left side.

To load a prewritten script into the python window, right click and select the “load” option from the menu. Navigate to the folder where the python file is store and select. Click the “open” button to add the script to the window.

To run a loaded script, hit the “enter” button on the keyboard twice. The right side will now print out status updates on the running script. Running a python script within ArcMap allows the user to see dynamically the results of the outputs as the script processes each geoprocessing step.

Python scripts for ArcMap processes can also be edited and run within an IDE. IDE stands for Integrated Development Environment. IDEs for python scripting include IDLE, PythonWin, PyScripter, and Wing.

For further learning materials, Esri has compiled a Python for ArcGIS page which provides a variety of Esri-based and individually created resources for learning python including a beginner’s guide, tutorials, and sample scripts.

A Guide to the Python Universe for ESRI Users (PDF File)Overview and guide for GIS users to Python by Howard Butler from Iowa State University.
Using Python in QGIS

QGIS is an open source GIS which incorporated python as a scripting option starting with release 0.9. The PyQGIS cookbook provides a good introductory text on how python is used with the QGIS environment. The QGIS blog also has a list of QGIS tutorials in Python.
Open Source GIS and Python

Geoprocessing with Python using Open Source GIS
Structured course outline by Chris Garrard of Utah State University with links to open source software, course slides, and data.

Geopy
Geocoding toolbox for Python. Provides support for six geocoders: Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps, Windows Local Live (Virtual Earth), geocoder.us, GeoNames, MediaWiki pages (with the GIS extension), and Semantic MediaWiki pages.

Python Cartographic Library
The Python Cartography Library, or PCL, is a package of modules for rendering GIS data from a variety of backends into maps. Open source.

Python and GIS 101
From Sean Giles’ blog.


Unofficial Python GIS SIGDiscussion group for GIS developers using Python with a focus on exchanging ideas and peer support.
Python for ArcView 3.x

Using Python with ArcView 3.xResources for using Python with ArcView 3.x software. Also contains links to Python examples and resources.

AvPython
Python language support for ArcView 3.x software which allows you to embed Python within ArcView 3.x
Other Legacy GIS Python Usage

Code Samples

Python code samples for GIS mostly involving USGS SDTS DEM files.

                                              

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Learning GIS Programming

BY CAITLIN DEMPSEY MORAIS


Having some competence in programming has become a critical requirement for many geospatial positions. The majority of GIS analyst level positions require some expertise in programming and application development. So which languages should you learn for GIS programming? Python is a popular scripting language in the GIS arena, especially for those wanting to work with ESRI desktop products. Learning Python is the way to go for scripting and creating tools inside of the ArcGIS framework. C# is another recommended programming language that is relatively easy and intuitive to learn. Learning .NET will also allow you to customize ArcGIS. Using VBA is on the decline and ESRI will no longer support VBA beyond ArcGIS 10 (Users who have custom functionality built using VBA should actively plan strategies to rewrite their applications using a supported development language such as Python, VB.NET, or C# so their applications continue to be operational and supported in future releases of ArcGIS.).

For web-based applications development,learn HTML, javascript, and CSS as a baseline. Java, PHP, and ASP.NET are additional programming languages for more advance web development.

Where to get started? Learning the basic concepts of programming is very important. From there, move onto a specific programming language. Below is a guide to finding online resources and books to help you learn programming.

Do you have a recommendation on learning programming for GIS?
Leave your tip or resource link in the comment section.

The Basics of Programming

How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Programming and Computin g
A must read for anyone how wants to learn how to program. The September 2003 edition can be accessed free.
C++ in GIS

Object-Oriented Programming with C++
Free online courseware (lectures and tutorials) from University of Southern Queensland’s OpenCourseWare (USQ OCW).
Python and GIS

(also see Python and GIS for more resources)

Beginner’s Guide to Python
Free, online resource to learning Python.

Google’s Python Class
Free class from Google to learn Python.

Python for Software Design: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist
Book that provides a concise introduction to software design using Python. This book is the updated version of How to Think Like a Computer Scientist: Learning with Python which can be downloaded for free under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Geoprocessing with Python using Open Source GIS
Structured course outline by Chris Garrard of Utah State University with links to open source software, course slides, and data.
VBA and GIS

Getting to know ArcObjects: Programming ArcGIS with VBA
Book by Robert Burke that provides a basic overview of programming and programming ArcObjects within the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) development environment.

GIS Programming Makes You Lazy
Tutorial Site that provides and overview of the concepts of Objects, Classes, and Interfaces, VBA, and ArcObjects.

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