Postgis-Help for Beginners, was: Re: [Qgis-user] Re: Edit UI (John C. Tull)

[Andreas Neumann]

Hi,

If you are serious into learning Postgis I recommend buying Regina Obes
and Leo Hsu's "Postgis in Action" - which also covers integration of
Postgis in OpenSource GIS apps. Another good online resource for Postgres
(without Postgis) is the official PostgreSQL reference, which I find quite
easy to read:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/interactive/index.html

Sure, there are some advanced and harder to understand topics, but the
part that new users have to deal with is relatively easy to learn. With a
graphical client like pgAdmin3 you can see the underlying SQL commands
while interactively working with Postgis.

I also agree with Paolo: if you are the only user of the data and if the
Postgis learning path is too steep, then SpatiaLite might be a better
option, which is more powerful than Shapefiles and keeps all data in one
file. Also there are SpatiaLite tools that allow to browse and explore
data without a GIS.

Having to deal with both Postgis and OracleSpatial at my workplace I can
say that Postgis is much easier to learn and maintain than Oracle and that
the Postgis community is much friendlier and quicker to help.

Andreas

On Tue, March 16, 2010 9:16 pm, Doug Lane wrote:
>
>
> I would like to second this sentiment.   As someone who has learned the
> ARC way with geodatabases and is looking more at the open source world
> (and trying to get more people into it also!!)  this would be a tremendous
> benefit.
> I have looked at the desktop GIS book, and am still overwhelmed learning 2
> new large pieces of software at once.  QGIS is fairly easy to pick up, but
> the whole POSTGRE/ POSTGIS part is intimidating...
>
> I know that people are busy working on the QGIS project, but if someone
> were to take the time and make a beginner's guide to the most
> common/useful commands and how to setup/integrate into QGIS, I feel it
> would be EXTREMELY beneficial to both projects....   and most of all give
> you the competitive leg up on other OS GIS products and a larger chunk of
> users away from the larger way more expensive program that most people
> use.
>
> Just a humble thought to help some of us straddling the fence of trying to
> learn FOSS software instead of being intimidated and giving up....
>
> doug
>
>  EMAILING FOR THE GREATER GOOD
> Join me
>> Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 08:28:17 -0700
>> From: "John C. Tull" <jctull at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Qgis-user] Edit UI
>> To: Mike Toews <mwtoews at gmail.com>
>> Cc: qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org
>> Message-ID: <05F06230-72B8-4E46-BE8B-80BBC74C8B3A at gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
>>
>> Mike and others,
>>
>> There have been some useful posts recently about leveraging the power of
>> postgis in qgis. What would be great is if someone or several people
>> with postgis skills could produce some tutorials on how postgis can be
>> used in qgis (beyond simply having a postgis database). Unfortunately,
>> even a useful postgis query in the email list without a real-world
>> example of implementation can be very intimidating or confusing for most
>> users as sql is a challenge to the uninitiated. Ideally, a series of
>> video or well-imaged written tutorials can be made that will walk people
>> through some useful postgis capabilities.
>>
>> Examples that would be helpful include setting up the
>> triggers/views/functions that you alluded to below, performing
>> intersections or other geometry calculations that can generate new
>> postgis tables, adding area or length calculations to existing polygons
>> in an auto-update field (is that possible?), etc.
>>
>> Having the visual tutorials for leveraging the power of postgis in qgis
>> would be a tremendous boon to the qgis community, and it would help set
>> qgis apart from other gis software. Many people would benefit from this,
>> and I include myself as one of the potential beneficiaries.
>>
>> I hope that you or others may be able to rise to this qgis community
>> need. If anyone knows of existing postgis/qgis tutorials, let's get a
>> list in the wiki so people can find them easily.
>>
>> Regards,
>> John
>>
>
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-- 
Andreas Neumann
http://www.carto.net/neumann/
http://www.svgopen.org/