The programming language I am really looking forward to
learning this semester is Python.
Python is an open-source project and it is freely usable and
distributable, even for commercial use.
It strives to achieve “readability” which means it is relatively easy to
read someone else’s code to determine the functionality. It is "portable" which means that the code can
be used on several platforms with very little modification. It is "versatile" because it can be used as a
scripting language but also supports fully object oriented programming as well. ESRI has leveraged the strength of Python
into its product line by implementing the ArcPy package which can “perform geographic
data analysis, data conversion, data management, and map automation” 1 Python is the successor to VBA (Visual Basic
for Applications) as the primary development language within the ESRI product
line. ModelBuilder can be used to
generate Python code from a GUI (Graphic User Interface) view.
An example of a program that could be generated using Python
would be a drive time estimator. You
could click at any point on a map and Python could then compute the drive time
to a particular location. Python would
leverage the geographic information that ArcGIS can provide to retrieve these
results.
It is a great time to learn Python with the release of 10.1
coming out next month.
Some pages I found to help fellow Argonauts include:
Thank you for the links! They have been a great help getting familiar with and into the mindset needed.
ReplyDelete