Greetings and Hello World!
I took a GIS course in my graduate MPA program and I found it to be very fulfilling, and I found that map making ability to be very useful. It adds a very technical element to what otherwise is a not so technical study, and it's a way that statistics, narratives, budgeting, policy, and other aspects of administrating in the public can work.
I have some questions about how GIS works however:
1) Upon booting up any GIS program, there is a user interface with buttons that trigger functions and output files in such ways. For instance, there are vector files, raster files, line files, and the like. If I import a vector file, how does GIS know where to place it on the screen? How does GIS know where to place it withiin the user interface, where it can be manipulated? Very often I'll import a vector file, or a raster file, or a line file, or any other file, and somehow whatever file that is either ends up focused or
