arcgis engine

ArcGIS 10 Service Pack 2 Is Available

by

Esri announced late today that Service Pack 2 for ArcGIS 10 is available. It looks like a fairly sizable list of issues was addressed with this service pack. Who knows, we could be witnessing history as this could potentially be the last service pack to address ArcIMS. (Well, I can dream, can’t I?) Anyway, if … Read more

First Thoughts on ArcGIS 10.0

by

The announcement that ArcGIS 9.4 is being re-christened as 10.0 leaves me feeling somewhat bemused. I have seen the new version of Desktop and it is nice and will finally update the current Office-97-feeling UI. The list of changes coming in 10.0 (published so far) is impressive but I haven’t seen any discussion of the changes coming to the ArcGIS architecture, which is of greater interest to me as a developer and integrator. Given the past history of ArcGIS, calling this release 10.0, in my mind, implies a significant architectural shift. ArcGIS 8 was a clear departure from the previous releases of ARC/INFO. Indeed, it not only came with a new version but introduced the name “ArcGIS.”

Read more

DDJ on “The Return of the Desktop”

by

Okay, I swear I’m not on the DDJ payroll, but this article caught my eye immediately. Michael Swaine has been on a roll lately but I think this one just drips with significance for the GIS community.

Over the past 10 years, as everyone has run screaming from the desktop, I’ve been a little mystified as to why it was considered a good thing to reduce a CPU more powerful than everything NASA had in 1969 to a mere vehicle for a browser. The browser-based model reduced our computers to really cool-looking equivalents of a VT220 so it’s nice to see that the market is starting to gain back a little sanity.

Read more