[postgis-users] The Old Who is using PostGIS survey again?

[Stephen Woodbridge]

Paragon Corporation wrote:
> Leo and I have a good portion of a PostGIS book written.  Ideally we would
> like to get a publisher to publish it, but seem to be running into the same
> obstacles.  No publisher seems to think people use PostGIS to warrant enough
> demand for a book dedicated to it.
> 
> So to make a decent case for a book, can each of you in your own words
> describe
> 
> 1) How you use PostGIS?

I have long since abandoned using MySQL for Postgresql because of 
PostGIS. I use PostGIS for all spatial related projects, like:

1) Fleet management and asset tracking applications
2) For pgRouting applications and post processing the routing
3) soil analysis to compute percentage of lot based on soil type for tax 
assessment in county and state government
4) For reverse geocoding applications
5) For spatial data manipulation and warehousing
6) For delivering spatial data to UMN Mapserver for rendering maps
7) And endless one off tasks that require manipulation of spatial data

> 2) What you find useful about it over anything else?

There are probably other applications like GIS programs that can do 
stuff similar to PostGIS, but they are not database programs and you can 
not manipulate the data using SQL. One option is Oracle Spatial, but it 
is a costly proprietary solution and is closed source.

Another KEY feature of postgresql/PostGIS is the pgpsql stored procedure 
language that allows me to build canned solutions to spatial problems as 
stored procedures and share or license them to others. Likewise it is 
possible to extent postgresql and PostGIS with additional C code to add 
new functionality to the SQL interface. This was done in the pgRouting 
project.

> 3) Why you think there should be any book written focused on its use and of
> course if such a thing were to exist, would you buy it?

Spatial problems can be difficult to solve and there are often many 
apparent solutions to a given problem. This probably can be said for any 
domain of knowledge. Having a book that focuses on Spatial solutions and 
in a SQL environment would be very educational and help users understand 
  how to apply solutions to similar problems they encounter.

I would definitely buy a copy and I would recommend that my clients buy 
a copy. I sell/recommend solutions based on postgresql/PostGIS and it 
would be very helpful to be able to have a resource like this that I 
could recommend to my clients.

-Stephen Woodbridge
  http://imaptools.com/

> Of course I'll also need some official download stats etc. which hopefully
> the Refractions group can help out with.  I think Mark Cave-Ayland had
> posted some stats a while back, but can't find them.
> 
> Thanks,
> Regina
> 
> 
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