Geospatial technology, markets, and practice
Last week, I was talking with a colleague about how AI is changing software development and what that means for people entering the field. We're both fairly deep into our careers and have our own perspectives on development processes. He's a seasoned agile practitioner, and he wondered aloud whether the skills he's spent years developing … Continue reading Does AI Make Waterfall Affordable Again?
Depending on your point of view, "vibe coding" - using generative AI to iteratively develop code by using natural language to describe desired functionality - is either revolutionary or the slippery slope to deploying poor, irresponsible software. While both viewpoints have merit, I fall somewhere in the middle. As a programmer who is approaching 50 … Continue reading “Vibe Coding” a Mock API
I recently had a project requirement to export the contents of a delta table in Databricks to several formats, including shapefile and file geodatabase, with the output being placed in object storage mounted to DBFS. I set up the logic in a notebook, with the intent to use geopandas, which provides an easy wrapper around … Continue reading Exporting Data with GeoPandas in Databricks
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa Jimmy Buffet, "Fruitcakes," 1994 I hate writing tests. With the white-hot passion of a thousand suns. Tests are good and necessary for quality software. Automating tests is the core of any CI/CD pipeline worthy of the name. I am well-versed in the value of tests and testing. I … Continue reading A Grudging Thanks to Tests
One of the first tasks I ever had in my then-new GIS career was doing AML development in ARC/INFO 6.x for a data production project. My code parsed DXF exported from AutoCAD R11 for DOS and then assigned attributes based on things like layer, color, line weight, feature type, and others. It also georeferenced the … Continue reading Data Over Software