GIS Posts
A Different Kind of Project
My other learned (ing) languages so far have been about creating web content of some kind. That’s something which can be done manually but is better to automate to some degree. Not so with geographic data.
Geographic data describes the surface of our planet. Cartography, population analyses, and weather prediction are all geographic in nature. This project stands out because there is absolutely no confusion about the practical approach: geography is too complicated for a custom from-scratch attempt. I need to find a GIS program and learn how to use it.
GIS
GIS stands for Geographic Information System. It isn’t really a language or even a single system but rather a field unto itself. In practice it’s dominated by Esri, but Esri’s software is not open source. There’s nothing wrong with charging for software – they do great work and deserve to be compensated for it – but I am just trying to familiarize myself with what GIS is, how it works, and what types of things are possible in it. I’m not interested in anything which isn’t open source, at least not yet.
Quantum GIS (QGIS) is the tool I want to learn. It’s been around for a while. Going by the stack exchange posts I’ve come across (especially the old questions circa 2012) it has undergone major renovations in recent years which make it much more user-friendly. The current iteration – QGIS 3 – appears to be an all-in-one UI which bundles together general GIS processes with much older open-source GIS projects like GRASS. QGIS 3 also has a built-in plugin system to enhance its abilities.
The Plan
I thought the best way to learn GIS would be to follow a tutorial. I found one put out by the CDC here which looks perfect. It’s written for health care professionals who are unfamiliar with GIS. It starts from the very beginning but omits all the technical details, jumping straight into how to use the system to answer geospatial questions.
There is one catch, though: the tutorial is very specifically written for Esri’s flagship product ArcGIS. QGIS is more or less an open source alternative to ArcGIS, though I’m sure there are technically major fundamental differences. I believe it’s more accurate to say ArcGIS and QGIS are two different programs with similar goals.
My goal with this project is to complete the CDC ArcGIS tutorial using QGIS. I expect some otherwise trivial tasks will be difficult for me since the programs are different, but this way I am forced to do some experimenting and exploring of my own. And that’s a great way to learn.