With the rise of the neogeographers, along with the increased awareness and use of GIS thanks to the web, more and more positions are open for developers looking to move away from writing business accounting logic, and into the exciting “new” world of spatial data. I’ve noticed a few gotchas that have happened to developers with no GIS background while working on projects, so this list may at least raise awareness of some of the hurdles.
1. Get to Know your GIS Application
Most desktop development in GIS involves building extensions to an existing application using an existing programming library. In order to avoid reinventing the wheel you need to be able to use your GIS desktop package.
Before developing any automated tasks, manually go through the process to get a feel for any issues that may arise, and learn some of the terminology used by the program for the various functions. If the application has an option for hatched polygon fills, this option is also likely to be buried somewhere in the API. If you can’t find what you are looking for then run what you are trying to accomplish past a GIS user.