[postgis-users] Re: if i use postgis, is it true that i'll then have to worry about supporting only 1 database??

[Paul Ramsey]

My understanding is that you *can* do "direct editing" on  
SDO_GEOMETRY (if you have the appropriate licensing), but what  
happens is that ArcGIS actually runs much of the SDE stack locally,  
and maintains all the extra SDE cruft directly.  The net effect is  
slow and not so reliable as running SDE as a server. I also am not  
sure you can do anything subversive like (*gasp*) create a new table  
with SDO_GEOMETRY in a 3rd party tool then hit it directly from  
ArcGIS without modification or extra steps to "register" it as a  
spatial "layer".

P.

Which is to say, I think the answer is (a) yes and (b) no.

On 8-Feb-08, at 8:53 AM, Bart van den Eijnden (OSGIS) wrote:

> "So, if you think direct editing of SDO_GEOMETRY from ArcGIS (a)  
> works and (b) works well then perhaps you have a case to believe  
> that direct editing of PostGIS is on the way too."
>
> AFAIK: the answer to a) and b) is both no. You'll always need SDE  
> in between., if you use SDO_GEOMETRY.
>
> I would love to be proven wrong though in this case :-)
>
> Best regards,
> Bart
>
> Paul Ramsey schreef:
>>
>> On 8-Feb-08, at 1:39 AM, dnrg wrote:
>>
>>> ESRI tells me that, at the ArcGIS Desktop release 9.3,
>>> you'll be able to edit PostGIS data as core
>>> functionality. No SDE required. This will open doors
>>> and minds I hope. Paul, any comments on that?
>>
>> I'll believe it when I see it. Different elements of the ESRI  
>> marketing apparatus are interpreting the "support PostGIS"  
>> announcement differently. The most believable story I have heard  
>> is that ArcServer (nee SDE) will support a PostGIS geometry type,  
>> in much the same way as it support the Oracle SDO_GEOMETRY type.   
>> So, if you think direct editing of SDO_GEOMETRY from ArcGIS (a)  
>> works and (b) works well then perhaps you have a case to believe  
>> that direct editing of PostGIS is on the way too.
>>
>>> Paul, will PostGIS ever have versioning functionality
>>> for editing workflows similar to ArcSDE? Guess that
>>> would pervert the data, and then PostGIS would "own"
>>> the data in a way like ArcSDE does presently. Still,
>>> many shops find versioning valuable for workflows.
>>
>> Database lock-in is a fact of life, simple because it is hard to  
>> migrate databases, no matter how open they are. The best  
>> versioning solution I have seen is the Oracle implementation,  
>> which does "workspaces" using the basic MVCC versioning  
>> information available per-tuple.  I would love to have that, but  
>> frankly it requires a lot of core PostgreSQL back-end work, and  
>> the PgSQL core team doesn't have workspaces as a high (or even  
>> low) priority item.
>>
>> If we built a versioning system ala ESRI (side tables and  
>> references), we could do a somewhat better job, because it would  
>> be in the database level, not the middle-ware. However, it would  
>> have the same limitations in terms of requiring client software  
>> that knew what the heck to do with the stuff.
>>
>> "Why not."  Explain your use cases that cannot be met any other  
>> way.  There are some, but they are dwarfed by other use cases that  
>> have higher priority, in my opinion.  I see way more people using  
>> PostGIS for geoprocessing, for example, so a more robust and  
>> faster overlay facility seems like an important thing.  Ditto for  
>> more core geodetic support.
>>
>> P.
>>
>>>
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>>
>
>
> -- 
> Bart van den Eijnden
> OSGIS, Open Source GIS
> bartvde at osgis.nl
> http://www.osgis.nl
>
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