On Apr 9, 2012, at 2:58 PM, Steve Coast <[email protected]> wrote:

> Nobody give a flying monkey about the format jerking.

I do.

> 
> It's 2012 and we're waffling about formats. How about problems which I 
> actually care about or might generate actual revenue?

While I would love to know if there is a nice bar with good porter or stout 
(dislike IPA), I actually don't give a flying monkey about generating revenue, 
mainly because of the nature of my current employment. I get paid to create 
stuff and give it away. My employer is not worried about making money off of my 
efforts.

> ... If I may, we have a Small Data problem; 
> http://stevecoast.com/2012/04/10/small-data/ not any format problems.
> 
> 

No, we *do* have a data format problem, and will likely continue to have for 
the foreseeable future. Different data formats slow me down, making me work 
more, thereby, making me more expensive per unit of useful output to my 
employer. The reason we will likely have a data format problem for a while, if 
not forever, is because sometimes different data formats do become necessary. 

We can alleviate the problem with the help of interfaces that allow us to query 
the underlying data using standard APIs without really caring or even knowing 
what the storage format or technology is... But, someone, somewhere has to 
worry about it. A robust replacement for Shapefiles might be useful, especially 
for portable data files.

--
Puneet Kishor
_______________________________________________
Geowanking mailing list
[email protected]
http://geowanking.org/mailman/listinfo/geowanking_geowanking.org

Reply via email to