The idea of integrating an Avenue interpreter into OpenJUMP is very
interesting. I don't know much about Avenue, but if it is as limited and
as simple as has been stated, this might be possible.
I'll have to look into this. I think I actually have an old Avenue
programming book around here somewhere.
The Sunburned Surveyor
________________________________
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Eric Wolf
Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 4:39 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Geowanking] ArcView 3.1 replacement
I've always thought that GPL'ing ArcView would be both an outstanding
and astounding move by ESRI. ArcView represents the state of GIS about
10 years ago. That was a good point in time because the fundamentals of
GIS were well established by that point. A GPL'd ArcView could become a
powerful educational tool that, ultimately, would drive greater demand
for ArcGIS.
As far as abandoning analysts with Avenue... ArcGIS through .NET and COM
exposes considerably more functionality than you ever got with Avenue.
The reason Avenue was so simple, semantically, was that the exposed
functionality was very limited. Consider that ArcGIS Desktop (ArcView,
ArcEditor, ArcInfo 9.2) are essentially just implementations of the
functionality exposed by the ArcGIS COM objects. The objects are also
available without the ArcGIS Desktop interface. The transition from
ArcView 3.3 to ArcGIS was really hampered by it's complexity. This
caused alot of delays that resulted in people getting really closely
tied to Avenue and not feeling like they can adopt the ArcGIS COM
structure.
Overall, I'd say ESRI mostly has an identity problem. They still haven't
fully realized that they are a software company. And they are a software
company on the scale of Microsoft. They need people who are very good at
structuring APIs. And they also need people who better understand
software lifecycles.
As for an opensource interpreter for Avenue... Most of the osgeo
environments already have a solid scripting component - usually in Java.
Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, I think it's better for open
source to move forward with things like JUMP. Of course, an Avenue
interpreter in JUMP might be an interesting project!
-Eric
On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 5:12 PM, Howard Butler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
On Apr 18, 2008, at 5:15 PM, percy wrote:
I think the key here is to discuss the Extensions to Arcview and Arcmap.
Much of the base functionality can be covered by these FOSS desktop
clients like gvSIG and QGIS and UDIG, but extensions like Spatial
analyst and 3D analyst, for some of us, is where it becomes difficult to
our work done using only FOSS.
I think a key component would be an open source interpreter for Avenue
implemented for either QGIS, uDig, or gvSIG. It wouldn't need to be
complete parity with what ArcView 3.x had, but if it were at least an
80/20 solution, folks with scripts and utilities that they're using for
basic data manipulation and simple analysis would have an upgrade path.
ESRI abandoned lots of smalltime developers when they moved from ArcView
3.x to ArcGIS and didn't bring the Avenue folks along for the ride.
Rather than face the migration cost of rewriting all of their Avenue
code, they're just sitting there hoping things will continue to work
unsupported for a while. ESRI's not going to bring Avenue forward --
they've moved on to .NET and COM Python wrappers -- and I think there's
a significant audience of analysis-oriented folks that were left behind.
If the open source world gave these folks a potential migration path, it
might generate enough interest and funding to bootstrap it.
Alternatively, if ESRI wanted to totally fluster the open source desktop
market, they could GPL ArcView (the pieces of it they own and could
actually license) and let all of us freetards froth over it for two or
three years trying to beat it into some kind of shape. By the time we
actually get it to work, they'll probably be end-of-life'ing ArcGIS and
on to the next thing...
Howard
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Eric B. Wolf 720-209-6818
PhD Student CU-Boulder - Geography
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