Mapping Hacks

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Foreword

When I first heard that Jo, Rich, and Schuyler were developing an O’Reilly

Mapping Hacks book, I was thrilled at the extra visibility this could bring to

my favorite area of computing. But it wasn’t until I started reviewing many

of the hacks in this book that I realized just how appropriate mapping was

to the Hacks series.

To me, a software hack is something that can be done fairly quickly (in no

more than an intense evening), is often a surprising or nontraditional use of

technology, and gives a “Wow!” feeling when it works. With the support of

many contributors, the authors have done a great job of providing hacks in

many different areas of mapping.

I have been working in the geospatial world since 1992. I left a traditional

geospatial software vendor in late 1998 to start writing open source soft-

ware in the same field. My main rationale was that the coolness of mapping

should be accessible to a much broader user base than was the case at the

time. I felt that releasing the libraries and applications that I wrote as open

source would contribute to making that happen. In fact over the last six

years, I have seen growth of a strong community of users, developers, and

software.

This book demonstrates that my work, and the work of the many people I

have collaborated with and admired over the years, has given us a wealth of

capabilities. In fact, this book has opened my eyes to the breadth ...