We were talking (or typing) on Slack last week and I was asked what I thought was the single greatest software innovation while I’ve been working. A ton of things came to mind from from Apple’s HyperCard (more than anything this made me a programmer) and I even wrote a post about it back in 2006. I don’t think anything on that list is technically incorrect, but I wouldn’t put ArcView 3.x in that list anymore.
BUT, let’s get real here. Each of those software products are amazing in their own right, but I don’t think any of them really moved the needle on spatial like the one I really think impacted the trajectory of what we used to call GIS.
Now I know what you’re going to say, why isn’t it PostGIS??? Now PostGIS has been clearly the leader since SQL Server 2008 arrived, but I believe it was SQL Server which changed expectations on paying for a geospatial database (Oracle, SDE or others). I mean I used to have Esri SDE on Oracle, I can’t even remember how expensive that was and how buggy it all was. Microsoft even put spatial into their free version.
I can’t recall the last time I used stand alone SQL Server, mostly my days are PostGIS or some cloud based spatial geodatabase engine. But, the line before SQL Server 2008 and after is clear as day. All of a sudden enterprise grade geodatabase when from niche to normal and spatial ceased to be special. Using Oracle Spatial or Esri ArcSDE always ended with me tossing the server in the trash.
