[postgis-users] ESRI GDB format into PostGIS

[Alan Keown]

My 3.25 cents (the $AUS is rising)

"Geometry is just another data type" - one of my favourite mantras for
years.

I'm not so sure that ESRI "forces" the divide between spatial and attribute
but they are driving the spatial - it's the "be-all-and-end-all" of what
they do according to Jack.

It is sooo tempting to fiddle the data model to make the application
modelling easier. ESRI caught this disease with INFO and, it seems, just
can't quite shake it off. But, as you say Simon, why should they? It works
for them.

The first GIS I worked with was GeoVision (a geometry engine sitting on top
of Oracle). When I first encountered ArcINFO I was horrified at the INFO
"database" but bewitched and beguiled by the Arc geometry engine. 

So, I'm interested Simon: "Do you think the ESRI Workspace XML has any
future as a 'logical interface'?

Cheers
AlanK


-----Original Message-----
From: postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net
[mailto:postgis-users-bounces at postgis.refractions.net] On Behalf Of Simon
Greener
Sent: Tuesday, 2 June 2009 10:40 AM
To: PostGIS Users Discussion
Subject: Re: [postgis-users] ESRI GDB format into PostGIS

Ragi,

Lots of good, sensible comment. I particularly agree about SDE vs
GeoDatabase. I believe Manifold GIS understands the small handful of tables
in SDE that go way back to 1.0 but does not understand the GDB_* tables
added at 8.x or the versioning tables. But I will check.

> Now I and (hopefully) you understand why open formats are a
> "good thing", but the philosophy behind it has not struck ESRI management
> strong enough. 

I just am not one who ascribes to this viewpoint any more for spatial data
management within
enterprise, though I do agree we need specialised interchange formats where
nothing exists
in the IT world for data interchagne. 

Is anyone seriously arguing that we need to force Oracle, Microsoft or IBM
to make their storage 
formats public so programmers can create APIs and hack their way into the
data that is stored within? 
How many GIS programmers here have gone to PostgreSQL's documentation to
work out how a table
is stored? 

ESRI's problem is that they believe spatial data has an inherent logic to it
that forces them to create new 
and wonderful (effectively) database formats to manage spatial (and
attribue) data. They continue to force 
a divide into data management within organisations into two camps "spatial"
(ie "mine") and "attribute" (ie "yours").

As Chris Date and Hugh Darwen wrote in their book "Foundation for Future
Database Systems: The Third Manifesto".

“What we are saying is that, in the relational world, a domain is a data
type, system- or user-defined, whose values are manipulable soley by means
of the operators defined for the type in question (AND WHOSE INTERNAL
REPRESENTATION CAN BE ARBITRARILY COMPLEX BUT IS HIDDEN FROM THE USER).”
[My emphasis]

What Date and Darwen say for the "relational world" applies to all database
technologies: what we need for access is logical interfaces not a dependence
on accessing data by knowing the physical storage formats.

ESRI's efforts deliver neither open logical access technologies (eg spatial
SQL via open JDBC implementations) or open physical formats.

Just my 4c worth.

S.



-- 
SpatialDB Advice and Design, Solutions Architecture and Programming,
Oracle Database 10g Administrator Certified Associate; Oracle Database 10g
SQL Certified Professional
Oracle Spatial, SQL Server, PostGIS, MySQL, ArcSDE, Manifold GIS, FME,
Radius Topology and Studio Specialist.
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