topic Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum? in Geoprocessing Questions

Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

ChrisSnyder — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 16:38:46 GMT

Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum that is seperate from the existing "Geoprocessing" and "ArcGIS Desktop - General" forum topics?

For the "long story" background on the issue: http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/10092-Should-this-forum-be-SPLIT

The basic arguments are (and I am trying to be very 'fair and balanced' here, although maybe I shouldn't 😞

Yes: Python scripting continues to become an increasingly popular and important method to automate GIS workflows and with advances in v10, no longer applies to only geoprocessing tasks. Providing a separate "Python Scripting" forum will make it easier for knowledgeable contributors to reply to Python-related questions and provide a more focused and easy to browse knowledge base resource for all users interested in Python scripting.

No: Fewer forum topics is better, as many new ESRI users do not know what forum to post their questions under. Having fewer forum topics concentrates traffic and maximizes posts. The more threads in a forum, the better chance the thread will be responded to. Python-related questions are best left in the existing "Geoprocessing" and/or "ArcGIS Desktop - General" forums.

Python users (or would-be users) unite! Help shape the new ESRI forum... Vote!

Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

LornaMurison — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 17:00:11 GMT

I am a very new python user. Just yesterday wrote my first script to buffer a point 🙂
I think having a separate python forum will be extremely useful, much like the old ArcObjects - VBA forum was in helping me learn that language.

Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

TedCronin — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 18:59:30 GMT

So, should the new forum thread be called Python scripting, or just Python?

I prefer Python. Python is a bit past just scripting.

Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

DanPatterson_Retired — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 19:26:05 GMT

No ... for all the reasons in the No section. Tags need to be implemented...in a Borg system, the post could be scanned for relevant tags and the appropriate forum suggested. Most people aren't that sentient and will continue to post in the General forum (ie field calculator Python issues) or in the GP forum. But anyway it is the posting that is the problem not the forum splits and/or aggregations. I would vote for removing any General forum altogether

Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

TedCronin — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 20:27:24 GMT

Too bad there is not a weight feature on this poll, since Kevin and Jason would be less weight, since they are supporters rather than users.

Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

BartHound — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 20:32:26 GMT

Keep it simple. Thats the whole philosophy ain't it.

Beautiful is better than ugly.
Simple is better than complex.
Sparse is better than dense.

Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

TedCronin — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 20:39:00 GMT

Keep it simple. Thats the whole philosophy ain't it.

Beautiful is better than ugly.
Simple is better than complex.
Sparse is better than dense.

I totally agree with this quote completely and its totally relevant with regards to this forum category and the forums overall. I would also add:

Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.

But then having its own category would be a bit more explicit.

Explicit is better than implicit.

Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

BartHound — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 20:45:40 GMT

If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.

Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

ChrisSnyder — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 21:48:15 GMT

WAIT A MINUTE - aren't you the same Bart_D_Hound that said this:

Put my vote in as well for splitting up these here forums for gp, into scripting (python) and at least Model Builder, along with General GP.

here:

http://forums.arcgis.com/threads/10092-Should-this-forum-be-SPLIT?p=48122&viewfull=1#post48122

What gives? This vote certainly isn't going the way I thought it would...

Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

BartHound — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 21:56:06 GMT

Ahh, I am that user, but Tim Peters changed my mind since that post, I now follow the Zen of Python to the extreme.

Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

FrankPerks — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 03:06:44 GMT

I vote yes.... kinda. However i find it really hard to differentiate exactly what constitutes "Geoprocessing" anymore, since it covers a really wide variety of topics (model builder, python scripting, all the way to the happy land of ArcObjects). However i see too many of the sub forums have Programming, functionality, and troubleshooting questions all mashed together.

For example i have seen topics like the following throughout the geoprocessing forum:
- Model Builder
- Writing custom Geoprocessor Tools with their own Python Scripts
- Writing Python Scripts from Scratch to be used via command line
- ArcObjects and Python
- This third party library python has issues with ArcGIS
- My python install is borked.
- How can i implement X for python? (or any other question just about python)

Half of this is troubleshooting / general help relating to usage of the geoprocessing tools and belongs in ArcGIS General, and the other half is coding related. Breaking this into two groups would be wonderful.

No ... for all the reasons in the No section. Tags need to be implemented...in a Borg system, the post could be scanned for relevant tags and the appropriate forum suggested. Most people aren't that sentient and will continue to post in the General forum (ie field calculator Python issues) or in the GP forum. But anyway it is the posting that is the problem not the forum splits and/or aggregations. I would vote for removing any General forum altogether

Tags would never work, unless there was a user base who was constantly going and changing jimmy's incorrectly tagged question (ArcObjects or.. Arc Objects), like stackoverflow.

Explicit is better than implicit.

So very true.

Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

ChrisMathers — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 12:56:29 GMT

I think the split would be good on the grounds that python isnt just about GP. You can do all sorts of stuff to your tables and data that have nothing to do with the "geo" part. Half the python code I write is stats on my dbfs. Arcpy.mapping if nothing else makes python a separate catagory from GP. Taking python into its own forum would open up the disscussion to more avenues than just GP.

Tags would never work, unless there was a user base who was constantly going and changing jimmy's incorrectly tagged question (ArcObjects or.. Arc Objects), like stackoverflow

This point was made in the "Should we split" post. We would need a team that was keeping constant eye on posts or a very complex spider that was constantly crawling the forums tagging things.

On another note,

happy land of ArcObjects

Since when is AO happy? It makes my brain hurt.

Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

JimBarry — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 14:15:44 GMT

made sticky -jb

Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

ArcGISUser — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 15:52:04 GMT

Build it and they will come... 🙂

We are already here.

No ... for all the reasons in the No section. Tags need to be implemented...in a Borg system, the post could be scanned for relevant tags and the appropriate forum suggested. Most people aren't that sentient and will continue to post in the General forum (ie field calculator Python issues) or in the GP forum. But anyway it is the posting that is the problem not the forum splits and/or aggregations. I would vote for removing any General forum altogether

Honestly, all the topics are blurred or heavily interwoven together. Python has such a far reach over so many topics that you can find python and GP discussed in multiple forums/subforums. I am not sure if making a separate Python subforum will help.

As of 10-28-10, when I check out the Map Automation subforum (not including the sticky), the first 10 out of 10 threads are python related. I even see python discussions in the Data Models subforum, python discussions in the Geodatabase & ArcSDE subforum, GP related discussions in the API subsforums, of course some topics in the ArcGIS Desktop �?? General forum as well. There are probably more subforums like this, but I don�??t feel like reading every one of them. So in short, are all of those posts going to be moved to the new Python forum if it gets created? Will a new python subforum remedy this problem?

Okay, so I invite you guys to go to the main page: http://forums.arcgis.com/index.php and pick a group, whether Extensions, Functions, etc, and just go down the list and you COULD very well write a python script for use in a majority of these topics. If I had a question about automating my Map Templates (using data driven pages) with a python script, and I want it to populate values for my edit feature templates, and have it kick off a report as well, where do I put that question? (This is something we are actually looking at but I haven�??t posted this question yet). Will I put this in Map Automation (for data driven pages), Python (because it is a python script), Map templates (can we even do this for edit templates yet?), Cartography (for edit templates, also concerns layouts and possible layout optimization), or in ArcGIS Desktop-General (because of that report element)? And if I was having a heck of a time getting my buffer GP tool to work for my Silverlight web app, do I put that in the GP or Silverlight forum? You guys might have better examples of these types of scenarios but I think you know what I mean that basically, a question can easily cross multiple forums/subforums.

So my questions:

- Will a separate Python forum remedy this situation? Will it prevent python discussions from cropping up in other forums?
- Do you guys recommend posting the same question multiple times on multiple forums?
- And should any and all Python related discussions go in a future Python forum?

As Dan mentioned above, there has to be another way�?�

P.S. My vote is not just "No" for "No split, keep it the same and don't do anything about it," but "No split, we need another solution."

Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

ArcGISUser — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:43:52 GMT

It seems that esri is becoming more python centric.

Seems like "Python Scripting" is an important "Function" and is becoming more so for many of us...

Heck yeah! That's why it is found everywhere and in many forums... That is why this whole issue is tricky!

Sorry, can't help myself. 😛

Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

ChrisSnyder — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:46:11 GMT

So my questions:

- Will a separate Python forum remedy this situation? Will it prevent python discussions from cropping up in other forums?
- Do you guys recommend posting the same question multiple times on multiple forums?
- And should any and all Python related discussions go in a future Python forum?

As Dan mentioned above, there has to be another way�?�

#1a: Won't remedy it, but I do think it will minimize it.
#1b: No, but again, probably minimize it.
#2: No, but honestly I don't really see the problem in cross posting the same thread to different forums.
#3. Ideally yes.

#Another way? I haven't heard many: Auto-tagging crawler code? Expert users applying tags manually? Seems too pie-in-the-sky to me. Jim already said he wouldn't (or at least be reluctant) to institute an forum crawler auto-tagger. Who's going to sit around an manually tag stuff? Not me!

Per #3, Frank P. said:

For example i have seen topics like the following throughout the geoprocessing forum:
- Model Builder
- Writing custom Geoprocessor Tools with their own Python Scripts
- Writing Python Scripts from Scratch to be used via command line
- ArcObjects and Python
- This third party library python has issues with ArcGIS
- My python install is borked.
- How can i implement X for python? (or any other question just about python)

This is very true of course. My argument is that these questions all have the word "Python" in them (except the MB one!), and therefore belong in the "Python" forum. Assuming, people that are knowledgeable of Python stuff, and and like to lurk in the Python forum (because they learn a lot doing so), would have good/better answers to these questions as they have the focused experience in "many things Python". Basically, a focused concentration of knowledge on a specific topic will yield better results. The positive outcome is debatable, but this logic worked well at Los Alamos in the 1940's. The focus here I think should be building a "community" of knowledgeable and motivated contributors and making it easy for them to contribute answers.

A single "General" forum is not community building, nor does it make it easy for contributors to respond to threads related to their specific areas of expertise.

Merriam-webster definition for "Community": People with common interests (like GIS-Python scripting) living in a particular area (like an ESRI "Python" forum).

Vote Python!

Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

KarenRobine — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:56:59 GMT

I vote yes, just to help organize questions a little better. People will fer-sure post to the wrong forum; but thats always been an issue... so, no way to really stop that..

Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

ArcGISUser — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 17:00:22 GMT

So my questions:

- Will a separate Python forum remedy this situation? Will it prevent python discussions from cropping up in other forums?
- Do you guys recommend posting the same question multiple times on multiple forums?
- And should any and all Python related discussions go in a future Python forum?

#1a: Won't remedy it, but I do think it will minimize it.
#1b: No, but again, probably minimize it.
#2: No, but honestly I don't really see the problem in cross posting the same thread to different forums.
#3. Ideally yes.

Another question in regards to your response to #3:

Do you think Esri should move any and all existing python related discussions (like those currently in Map Automation, etc) to the future Python subforum?

Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

FrankPerks — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 17:02:18 GMT

This point was made in the "Should we split" post. We would need a team that was keeping constant eye on posts or a very complex spider that was constantly crawling the forums tagging things.

Well just make Dan and Riverside moderators, and the forums will be shiny overnight.

Since when is AO happy? It makes my brain hurt.

During my first coop term, i was given my first ever real world programming project which revolved around writing a set of ArcEngine based Raster importers. I gleefully choose C++ over .NET (i "knew" C++, well the standard lib). Armed with the SDK, and EDN, nothing could stop me! :rolleyes: .... Fastforward two months, anger, sorrow, and unlusting hate at the lack of C++ examples. Then on the verge of giving up completely, i decided to sit down and read about COM. After reading about COM, i reread the core of the ArcObjects documentation, then i reread about COM. After actually reading ESRI's + Microsofts documentation, everything became happy. Their library is huge, and complex but once you get the core basics down its fairly easy (visual assist x is a godsend. Working intellisense :D), and compared to other horrific SDK's (*cough* ERDAS *cough*), ArcObjects are happy. Also the first moment you go from C++ ArcObjects to C#.NET everything becomes kosher. So Yes ArcObjects is a happy land. Comtypes + Python makes it even sweeter.

Okay, so I invite you guys to go to the main page: http://forums.arcgis.com/index.php and pick a group, whether Extensions, Functions, etc, and just go down the list and you COULD very well write a python script for use in a majority of these topics. If I had a question about automating my Map Templates (using data driven pages) with a python script, and I want it to populate values for my edit feature templates, and have it kick off a report as well, where do I put that question? (This is something we are actually looking at but I haven�??t posted this question yet). Will I put this in Map Automation (for data driven pages), Python (because it is a python script), Map templates (can we even do this for edit templates yet?), Cartography (for edit templates, also concerns layouts and possible layout optimization), or in ArcGIS Desktop-General (because of that report element)? And if I was having a heck of a time getting my buffer GP tool to work for my Silverlight web app, do I put that in the GP or Silverlight forum? You guys might have better examples of these types of scenarios but I think you know what I mean that basically, a question can easily cross multiple forums/subforums.

Bingo.

Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum?

ChrisSnyder — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 19:16:24 GMT

Another question in regards to your response to #3:

Do you think Esri should move any and all existing python related discussions (like those currently in Map Automation, etc) to the future Python subforum?

It's not critical... But if Jim has a magic wand to do that sort of thing, by all means.

topic Re: Should there be a new "Python Scripting" forum? in Geoprocessing Questions

Should there be a new &quot;Python Scripting&quot; forum?

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