I can hear everyone’s sighs of relief: more programming help has arrived for newbie programmers in the geo professions! The new book is titled Programming ArcGIS 10.1 with Python Cookbook, by Eric Pimpler, published in February 2013. I’m thrilled to announce that we get to giveaway three free e-copies of the book to the first three commenters on this post!
The 304 page book teaches you how to create geoprocessing scripts with ArcPy, automate map production and printing, create map books, develop custom geoprocessing tools that can be shared with others, customize the ArcGIS desktop interface with Python add-ons, and more. It’s even been reviewed by our well-known colleagues Alissa Bickar, Ann Stark, and Tripp Corbin.
According to the promo material, the book has:
Over 75 recipes to help you automate geoprocessing tasks, create solutions, and solve problems for ArcGIS with Python.
- Learn how to create geoprocessing scripts with ArcPy
- Customize and modify ArcGIS with Python
- Create time-saving tools and scripts for ArcGIS
We’ve been talking a lot lately about the need for more programming skills in the geo professions*, and this book might just be your ticket to gaining some of that much-needed knowledge. I like that it starts out with a very gentle introduction to Python for ArcGIS for those who’ve never done any programming before. In fact, the whole book is excellent for the beginner audience. Thankfully, the book is also well-edited, which is something I can’t say for some other recent programming books. It’s not that I’m against a few typos here and there, it’s when a book has typos in every paragraph that readability plummets. We don’t have that problem here.
Don’t forget to leave a comment if you’d like to win one of the free e-books. But if you don’t win, just buy it. It’s a fairly inexpensive way to begin your Python training at only $22.94 for the e-book and $44.99 for the print package (includes print book, e-book, and PacktLib access).
*Programming Proficiency Required
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#1 by BMB on May 13, 2013 - 11:52 am
knowledge for free…sign me up
#2 by Gretchen on May 13, 2013 - 11:57 am
hope I’m in the first three, this would be nice! Thanks!
#3 by Hugo on May 13, 2013 - 11:58 am
Sounds interesting, I wouldn’t mind taking a peek at that book!
#4 by Dale Loberger on May 13, 2013 - 11:58 am
GIS is about practicality and really making it work for a specific discipline requires some automation. I gave up on programming years ago, but Python is simplified automated. This is a must!
#5 by Nathan on May 13, 2013 - 11:59 am
Just checked twitter, and voila!
#6 by Adam Wilbert on May 13, 2013 - 11:59 am
oh, oh. mememe
#7 by Kristen on May 13, 2013 - 11:59 am
Sounds like a great book!
#8 by Dale Loberger on May 13, 2013 - 12:00 pm
This is just a correction to my post. …but Python is “simplified automation” not “automated”.
#9 by Gretchen on May 13, 2013 - 12:07 pm
Okay, our 1st winner is BMB, 2nd winner is Gretchen (I swear it’s not me!), and we have a tie for 3rd between Hugo and Dale. If the pub can’t donate 4 books I’ll buy Dale’s. Waiting to hear back from them on that.
#10 by julie kanzler on May 17, 2013 - 6:47 pm
I just want to put a plug in for the author. I’ve read other learning materials from Eric Pimpler, and he knows what he’s doing. I will definitely be looking into buying this book for my GIS library!