Dec 07/Jan/08

We could almost fill the m.logistics Software section with reviews of books for programmers, so we hope you'll understand why we don't always include any. However, a book from prolific computer publisher O'Reilly took our fancy - GIS for Web Developers.

If you don't know what GIS is, you probably don't need to read any further (it stands for geographic information system), but if you do, and you're involved in development for vehicle tracking or similar applications, this could be just what you're looking for. And GIS could have far wider implications, too.

As the publishers put it, 'Geo-aware functions are fast becoming a must-have feature for Web 2.0.' That means an awful lot of modern applications have mapping of some sort in them, or will soon.

The book starts out by explaining GIS with in simple terms and demonstrating it with hands-on examples, and shows how you can develop applications inexpensively. According to author Scott Davis: 'There is a vast amount of free basemap data on the Web. The problem is that it isn't gathered together in one place, and the popular search engines don't have targeted searches for geographic data.' He sets out to show you how to find and apply it.

 

Whether that data is going to be as effective as commercial data from the likes of Navteq, Tele Atlas or the OS is another question, but there are other benefits in the book too, including instructions in how to work with various map data formats such as plain text, ESRI Shapefiles and Geography Markup Language (GML).

All in all, a useful package.