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| Subject: | RE: GISList: Manifold 5.x vs. ArcGIS 8.x |
| Date: |
01/29/2003 02:23:56 PM |
| From: |
Richard Hoskins |
|
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Richard E. Hoskins, PhD MPH
WA State Public Health Geographer &
Senior Epidemiolgist
Office of the Assistant Secretary
Epidemiology, Health Statistics, &
Public Health Laboratories
1102 Quince Street
Olympia, WA 98504-7812
richard.hoskins@doh.wa.gov
(360) 236-4270
GMT -8
-----Original Message-----
From: Quantitative Decisions [mailto:whuber@quantdec.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 9:37 AM
To: gislist@geocomm.com
Subject: GISList: Manifold 5.x vs. ArcGIS 8.x
At 08:10 AM 1/29/2003 -0800, Dimitri Rotow wrote:
>You would get more credibiilty for your two cents if you addressed the
>substance of his post instead of engaging in character assassination.
>...
>This particular individual may have graduated recently, but nonetheless
has
>an immense amount of technical skill far and away above the "ground
floor of
>GIS" and great familiarity with the most recent editions of flagship
>products from ESRI, AutoDesk and Manifold.
There was a point to be made here. In GIS, there is practically no such
thing as an "objective" review. How we evaluate software depends
strongly
on what we like to do with it and on our skills with it. Your reviewer
was
clear about that. That he was sensitive to the issue is clear from his
opening statements which describe his work with GIS and the software he
knows. Kudos to him.
Thus, one always wants to know something about the perspective and
background of a GIS software reviewer. That's not an ad-hominem
attack. It's a part of critical thinking.
In this case, your reviewer clearly admits only a passing familiarity
with
some of the software, ArcView in particular:
"I have access to AutoCAD Map 5, ESRI ArcView 3.2a and ESRI ArcInfo
8.1."
[We all know the difference between "having access" and "great
familiarity," don't we? When you walk into a library you "have access"
to
hundreds of thousands of books, but how many of you are so "greatly
familiar" with English literature that you could hold your own in a
discussion of references to industrial development in nineteenth century
novels, for example?]
"I should also note that I am not a programmer, although I have been
know
to do some scripting and VB database front ends: therefore I will not
comment on any scripting etc.." [That is the standard code for someone
to
say that they are only a casual user of these products.]
What this says is that we are hearing from someone who has adopted
Manifold
for daily tasks but has only a passing, perhaps superficial, familiarity
with the ESRI products. Fair enough, but that has to be kept in
perspective.
>...
>Now, if you personally have configured sophisticated web sites and have
done
>other high-end work with the very latest products from these vendors,
>perhaps you could contribute some specific comments
I trust you did not intend this to be a comprehensive description of
what
"real" GIS professionals do!
I feel rather well qualified to contribute specific comments, despite
never
having configured a sophisticated Web site (mine is anything but that,
and
many people seem to appreciate it that way). You can readily check me
out on the Web: it should be clear my background and interests in GIS
are
broad and deep, but especially focused in using GIS to do interesting
things: perform analyses, answer questions, manipulate data. It will
also
be clear I can speak to the capabilities of some of the ESRI software
and
that I have solid experience in reviewing GIS software (such as
http://www.directionsmag.com/features.php?feature_id=40 ) I hope that
compensates for my lack of web site configuration experience :-).
The review on your site (http://www.manifold.net/news/posting1.html )
left
me with a strong impression that Manifold has paid attention to ease of
use
within certain workflows, especially work requiring data manipulation
and
modification. It also convinced me that the reviewer knew little about
the
capabilities of the ESRI software he "has access to." In particular,
*none* of his claims about ArcView 3.x are true or verifiable. They
reveal
much more about his limitations than about the software itself. Let's
consider each one in turn.
"ArcView 3.2 can't do it worth beans" It's not possible to tell what
"it"
refers to. This phrase, though, suggests either ignorance about or
disdain
for ArcView, a suggestion abundantly confirmed by subsequent remarks.
"ArcView can't do it [convert polylines to polygons] without the XTools
plug in, and its not very accurate for this." False and false. Plenty
of
extensions that do this, such as Tchoukanski's well-known EditTools, are
freely available on ESRI's well-known ArcScripts. Indeed, ESRI supplies
a
simple conversion script with ArcView
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