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| Subject: | Re: [gislist] masters vs. certificate |
| Date: |
06/20/2005 05:45:02 PM |
| From: |
Jame Mackson |
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Scott (and list),
Yea I wish more companies were like that too. The one I've worked at for
the past 5 or so years has been very cool in that way but as we grow (from
about 12 back then to about 50 now) I see that shifting also :-( anyways.
I do most of my programming in Delphi but that is primarily because we have
been a Delphi shop around here for a long time. However we have also been
asking ourselves what language will serve us be best for the future. In the
new version of Delphi, which you may know is natively a Pascal compiler:
they are now supporting both Pascal and C# syntax. So we've been asking
ourselves how long Borland is going to support Delphi and/or Pascal and if
we should start thinking about making a transition soon...
Anyways, If you were to ask me what the most marketable language for an
aspiring GIS programmer would be first I would say that being familiar with
COM programming techniques as well as familiarity with .NET are going to be
your best and most versatile moves as these are language independent things
that you will run across I'd bet in any GIS programming environment.
Next I would ask to what level of programming you aspire to. For a
beginner, without any real programming experience I would say learn to VBA
(especially if you are in an ESRI world) and go from there (this will teach
you COM and basic programming concepts). After that, for a more aggressive
programmer, I would say VB and / or C# are going to be very marketable
languages. For the most advanced programmer I would suggest going to C++,
although C# is becoming very competitive at this level as well. Delphi is
as good as C++ for just about everything, however support for Delphi,
especially in terms of GIS, is much more limited than most other languages.
So unless you have experience in Delphi I wouldn't necessarily go there
first even thou that's what i'm most familiar/comfortable in. You also
should take into consideration what GIS software you will be working with.
If it is ESRI and you want to do MAJOR customizations (like a custom feature
type or a custom renderer or something at that scale) you would need to know
C++ flat out: some customizations are not possible without it. Another
language that comes to mind is Java, which I personally do not favor but
many GIS applications have an API for Java so this is another option. I
personally don't care for Java much but that's just me. There are many
other languages out there as well but these are the ones that I am most
familiar with.
The other thing that comes to mind is scripting. Scripting environments use
a base language (like Pascal or VB or java) for it's syntax but tend to
behave a bit differently that a regular programming environment and are used
in many applications to customize behavior in the application. My company
uses scripting a lot to tailor our applications to the specific client's
implementation needs. ESRI supports scripting and is a very powerful way to
tailor there applications as well. I personally am not very familiar with
some of the other commercial GIS platforms like Intergraph or Small World
but i'm sure others on this list are and could give us both better
perspectives on this from their point of view. In any case, from my point
of view, familiarity with scripting will likely be a plus as well.
This is just my 3 cents but I hope that you find them helpful.
Jame
_____
From: Scott Kilker [mailto:Scott.Kilker@Sun.COM]
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 3:05 PM
To: Jame Mackson
Subject: Re: [gislist] masters vs. certificate
Hi Jame,
I really agree with your statement -
If you are semi intelligent, motivated
and a hard worker with some sort of decent ethics you will excel in whatever
you are compelled to do.
I wish more interviews focused on these things rather than knowing a
toolset. When you have the skills you mentioned, the toolsets take care of
themselves.
What GIS programming languages are you working with? I'm in a certificate
program now and am trying to figure out what programming languages that will
be most marketable.
Thanks!
Scott
I can really only speak from my own experience, not having any kind of 4
year degree to speak of I could be a bit biased here so take it for what it
is but... From my experience go out and get a job first. I have been
working for a company now for 6 years, started here right out of
[architectural] drafting school, into a relatively unrelated field
[electrical engineering / mapping], and am doing very well for my self and
enjoy what I do for a living. From drafting, I grew into GIS and am now a
successful GIS focused programmer. If you are semi intelligent, motivated
and a hard worker with some sort of decent ethics you will excel in whatever
you are compelled to do. Follow your intuition.
Jame Mackson
Software Developer
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