GIS for Web Developers: Adding 'Where' to Your Web Applications (Paperback)

by Scott Davis (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
There is a hidden revolution going on: geography is moving from niche to the mainstream. News reports routinely include maps and satellite images. More and more pieces of equipment cell phones, cars, computers now contain Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. Many of the major database vendors have made geographic data types standard in their flagship products.

GIS for Web Developers introduces Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in simple terms and demonstrates hands-on uses. With this book, you'll explore popular websites like maps.google.com, see the technologies they use, and learn how to create your own. Written with the usual Pragmatic Bookshelf humor and real-world experience, GIS for Web Developers makes geographic programming concepts accessible to the common developer.

This book will demystify GIS and show you how to make GIS work for you. You'll learn the buzzwords and explore ways to geographically-enable your own applications. GIS is not a fundamentally difficult domain, but there is a barrier to entry because of the industry jargon. This book will show you how to "walk the walk" and "talk the talk" of a geographer.

You'll learn how to find the vast amounts of free geographic data that's out there and how to bring it all together. Although this data is free, it's scattered across the web on a variety of different sites, in a variety of incompatible formats. You'll see how to convert it among several popular formats including plain text, ESRI Shapefiles, and Geography Markup Language (GML).

With this book in hand, you'll become a real geographic programmer using the Java programming language. You'll find plenty of working code examples in Java using some of the many GIS-oriented applications and APIs. You'll be able to:

Find free sources of GIS data on the web

Browse GIS data using open source desktop viewers

Manipulate GIS data programmatically

Store and retrieve data using geographically-enabled databases

Explore free web toolkits like Google Maps

Publish and consume web services using Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) interfaces

About the Author
Scott Davis is a senior software engineer with DigitalGlove, a satellite imaging company. His role in the company is a technical evangelist: educating developers in geographic technologies and making complex topics accessible to non-technical end users. Scott is a frequent presenter at national conferences and local user groups. He was the president of the Denver Java Users Group in 2003 when it was voted one of the top-ten JUGS in North America.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf (October 9, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0974514098
• ISBN-13: 978-0974514093
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #506,062 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #42 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Computer Science > Software Engineering > Multimedia Information Systems
  #55 in	Books > Science > Earth Sciences > Geography > Information Systems
  #72 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Graphics & Multimedia > GIS

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, easy summary of a complex subject, January 16, 2008

By	Kenneth A. Kousen (Marlborough, CT USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Prior to reading this book, my experience with mapping technologies was limited to writing Google Maps applications and using its geocoder. I didn't even really understand what a geocoder was.

Scott Davis provides a friendly, easy-going assist to learning the bizarre complexities and conventions associated with real mapping technologies. I was frankly dismayed at the state of the art, with its odd compromises and incomplete, conflicting tools. But Scott leads the reader through the maze quite effectively.

If you're ready to move beyond simple markers and lines, this book shows the way to _real_ mapping applications.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good bock, June 13, 2008

By	Mohammad H. Rahimi - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was not familiar with GIS system and I got this book to figure out how things work. The book turned out to be a great help for me. Since everything was very new to me I ended up spending a lot of time to learn about the PostGres database, it PostGIS extention and Geoserver. So do not take it as a complete walk through tutorial but it certainly great help when you get stock somewhere. Bear in mind that I am quiet computer savvy and familiar with linux, java and such. Overall, I recommend this book if you are a web developer that wants to deal with spatial data and his needs are beyond things that can be done simply on google Map, yahoo map and such.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Real "Map Guy" Shows You How to Get There, January 31, 2008

By	Brian Sletten (Fairfax, VA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

We have a hard time as software engineers mastering our own concepts. Once we are asked to work in a non-trivial domain like geospatially-enabled environments, it is easy to get lost (pun intended). This book acts as a map to the world of maps. It shows you where you are; in this case, building web-based applications that need to visualize spatially-oriented data. It shows you where you can go without taking too many trips down unnecessary rabbit holes. In short, Scott walks masterly on the very fine line of theory and practice making it both useful and instructive.

In addition to the informational content, the book is one of the more beautiful computer books I've seen recently. The decision to go with color plates for the images is key. In order to fully appreciate the power of visual contexts like this, you have to see the richness of the data.

I worked on one of the first "whole Earth" environments 14 years ago and would have gone bananas for a book like this. The field has changed pretty dramatically since then with the emergence of both the Web and rich and complicated standards like those we are seeing from the OGC. This book lays enough foundation of the theory and catches you up to the new and sexy tools available to us now.

We are not genetically-programmed to stare at words and tables. We are visual creatures and gain real insights when we can see relationships literally laid out in front of us.

Do your customers and users a favor and add some "where" to your applications. Do yourself a favor and pick up this guide to help you along the way.