Module 8(Cursor)

PART II: Module Summary

·        Have a lot better understanding of the Cursor group

·        Now to actually put it to work in the assignment

·        The Cursor tool could be very useful in the right hands, I have a small understanding so it might be dangerous in my hands

·        Type very carefully, as one little upper/lower case out of place and you could be searching for a long time

·        Have a long way to go to even scratch the surface of what can be accomplished with scripting

·        This is not something that you can do occasionally and become proficient

·        I didn’t have the time needed this semester to really delve into the class as needed, real life got in the way

·        Now I can take all the modules and have a great reference to help me to some scripting in the future

·        There have been some great references provided by classmates

·        Quite the difference from just adding a line to table compared to adding data to match a line

Module 7

PART III: Module Summary

I’m think I am finally starting to get a little bit of a grip on a lot of the steps required to get a script to work

The interactive GoToMeeting was a huge help in getting an explanation on some items that were not completely clear.

Now I have a quick way to make my folder structure for new projects easily.  This beats making the folders each time and taking a chance of misspelling them.

Each module adds new items to use in the script.  I’m still a long ways from completely understanding them, but with the Usage tool, I can now open quickly to see what parameters are required and what ones are optional. 

Checking to see what files Exist can speed up the process so you don’t accidentally overwrite it.

Using the ‘print’ statement will help show where you are in the script so you know the status as it is executed

Finally understand loops so that I can use fewer lines to perform repetitive steps

I think if I had about ten more interactive meeting like we had the other day, I might be able to actually walk through some scripting on my own

I still have a long ways to go before I can write scripts without a struggle

Even with help and the script doesn’t work, does not necessarily mean that the script is bad, it could be an error with the computer system

Module 5

PART III: Module Summary

I’m so confused right now I’m not sure exactly what I learned.

1.       Debugging a program that is written by oneself is very hard, let alone one written by someone else

2.      There are some good tools out there to help you debug a program

3.      It will take more than just a few exercises to really grasp the procedure

4.      I now know what some of the basic errors are so at least I can get a good start

5.      Some are quite easy to correct as the error is highlighted

6.      I know that you have fix syntax errors before you will see runtime errors

7.      Python DeBugger is a good tool for going step by step

8.      As long as I remember each of the commands and how to properly use each one

9.      You can print items in the debugger which will tell if things are going good

10.  This is good tool for testing loops

11.  Logic/semantic errors are the hardest to track down

12.  Will definitely keep exercises to look back over

13.  PyhonWin DeBugger was different, not sure I like it

14.  Would probably use Python DeBugger for a lot of variables

15.  Seems a lot more steps involved with PythonWin

16.  Still having problems with if/else statements

17.  Was able to fumble through the assignments, but thankfully there were a lot of good notes on the discussion board

18.  Learning scripting and debugging is a long slow tedious process

19.  My example scripts will help a lot when I run into a problem

20.  I’ve have a hard time writing these summaries because I am so focused on the problem at hand, that some steps are automatic and I can’t remember exactly what I did

21.  The first part of exercise was fairly easy to find the basic syntax errors

22.  The path took a while to get straight until I saw about the folder name

23.  The buffering was a pain, definitely have to look at each line carefully, this is where writing it yourself would help instead of trying to correct someone else’s

24.  With a lot of help from the discussion board I finally got it.  Thanks everyone

25.  The second one was fairly easy

26.  It only took a little while before I saw the wrong formulas

27.  I didn’t use any of the debugging tools we learned about

28.  Have to go back later and play with them more

The Calculate Area scripting tool provided in the toolbar above will give you the ability to calculate acres and hectares of shapefiles and add the field to the attribute table with the click of one button instead of the many steps required to the old fashioned way of adding each field separately and computing the acres and then repeating the process again for hectares.

Python Programming

Python is a powerful general purpose programming language developed in 1991 to let you work more quickly by automating tasks.  Its ease of code readability emphasizes it design philosophy and it has a large standard library to work from.  Being able to run on multiple platforms along with it being a a free open source tool greatly enhances its appeal. 
It features a dynamic type system that is checked as a run-time instead of at compile-time.  This speeds up the verification process. As a dynamic language it can be used as a scripting language or as a standalone executable program using third-party tools.
This tool will be very useful in automating task that have to be performed multiple times such as setting up buffer zones around features for analysis.