Positioning of GIS practitioners

I saw Linlin reprinted "chatting about GIS professional orientation and personal positioning problems" (http://www.cnblogs.com/gisattic/archive/2005/05/19/158872.html), there are some supplements and ideas.

The GIS software industry is still one of the highlights of the software industry in China. In terms of market share and software quality, I personally think it is still said, but on the other hand, with the GIS Major enrollment of large and small schools, there are more and more GIS practitioners, followed by more and more puzzles and problems.

What is GIS? Many people who are engaged in GIS are not clear about this problem, because many people in the circle understand that there is no need to clarify it here. Goodchild has a comprehensive review in 2004ArticleGIS and spatial data analysis converging Perspectives (papers Reg. Sci. 83,363-385 (2004) provides a good review of the history and prospects of GIS Development and Its Relationship with spatial analysis. I think we should take a look at GIS. At least understand that GIS is not an electronic form of map, nor is it software and plotting.

For a single discipline, there is nothing more than scientific research and application. for scientific research, it can be divided into basic research and application research. The problem domains are very different, in fact, two GIS practitioners may face very different problems in this article. The difference between GIS and some traditional disciplines may be that GIS requires software support and many things that require computer science and technology. Therefore, more requirements are required for an employee.

For personal positioning, you must first understand or decide whether to conduct research or application.

For basic research, the most basic problem is the frontier and the international frontier. It is necessary to understand where the frontier issues of the entire discipline are, rather than making some questions that have already been done by others, such as spatial information expression, uncertainty of spatial information. In this regard, one needs to frequently view articles related to international journals, and one needs to keep abreast of some "Daniel" comments. In fact, the GIS industry is just like a few experts, when I bought a copy of "Geographic Information System" (in the upper and lower volumes, the Electronics Industry Publishing House), the dozens of authors are basically the main figures in the field of basic research.

Application research should be a big topic, and practitioners should be familiar with this major and GIS-related issues. To put it bluntly, this field mainly involves the specific application of Spatial Modeling and spatial analysis. In this field, it may be difficult to distinguish between research and development (Engineering). The current situation is that many researchers are indeed developing, and the result is that development research is not doing well.

For basic platform development, I personally think it is a small part. Unless you are very interested, most people do not need to go in this direction. The Chinese platform and schools are not normal, which is a waste of resources and manpower.

I think application research is the least necessary for lack of programming capabilities, and basic platform development.

The rest is the application, which may be the largest, including data production, consulting, Enterprise (industry) systems, and civil systems. Data production is not discussed here. Most data production practitioners should be students who have graduated from technical schools and specialists. Spatial Analysis is a big part of decision-making consulting outside China. It will take some time to develop this industry in China, for the moment. So aside from basic and Application Research (after all, there will be a few people engaged in research), most practitioners are GIS application developers or users.

For application development, or secondary development, the difficulty is the difficulty of enterprise software? The so-called enterprise software equivalent is what we often call "mis". It can be very simple, but also very complicated. Therefore, if you are determined to go in this directionProgramEnterprise development platform (J2EE or.. Net), the design model should be a necessary basis, so engaging in this industry is similar to engaging in other industries, the need to master the theoretical knowledge of GIS and programming and development capabilities, the two are indispensable.

In addition to industry knowledge and GIS knowledge, basic computer applications and development are also necessary for applications. Their roles are similar to those of IT workers in many organizations, I don't know about program development, but I need industry-related knowledge and GIS-related basics.

The following are some gossip:

About the transfer: Many people are confused about the positioning of their employees, especially in the GIS or computer industry. My personal experience must develop vertically and then develop horizontally. In my personal experience, I have taken a lot of detours and probably already experienced three basically different industries (Finally, GIS is the closest to programmers), although it is still quite good. Therefore, even if you want to do one thing now, you don't have to be afraid of getting rid of it in the future. It's not that difficult to enter a new field. It is not difficult to switch between research and development. In short, it is not that difficult to change the industry. However, you must be careful and be thorough. You must be prepared to pay the price (waste of food, economic and material losses ).

About programming: programming is a long-term job. Languages and platforms are like your wife and are not so easy to change. Familiarity with a language is similar to familiarity with a woman. You need to know her strengths and weaknesses and be able to cope with her temper.

In the article "chatting about GIS", most systems in China are useless. In fact, it is not only a problem in the GIS field, but it may be more obvious. In addition to non-technical issues, a key issue lies in how GIS plays an important role in the system, not just spatial display.