Euan Cameron is responsible for Developer Technology at Esri and views a well-designed API as valuable as any work of art. Euan has worked in the geospatial software industry for over 30 years and continues have fun innovating with aps and technology. Euan and his wife Julie are outdoor enthusiasts and can often be found in the Sierra Nevada Mountains climbing, skiing, or hiking.
Euan was interviewed for GeoHipster by Mike Dolbow.
Q: You’ve had an interesting career and it seems like you’ve got a pretty sweet gig right now. Tell us how it all started.
A: I grew up in Perth, Scotland and from an early age I was always fascinated by maps; they are able to convey so much information in an amazingly efficient way. The Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 series were and still are beautiful, and I used to pore over these maps sheets for the highlands of Scotland imagining what it must be like to be in the middle of somewhere with no roads, no buildings, no people for miles around – a sea of contours. The love of maps and particularly the maps of the highlands of Scotland got me into hiking, skiing and then climbing. My favorite subjects at school were geography and mathematics and along with the love of the outdoors land surveying was an obvious career choice. I studied Survey and Mapping Sciences in London. Things don’t always turn out the way you plan them, and as it turned out, I was more interested in rock climbing than surveying. After climbing around Europe for a while the realization that money was in fact required for many things meant something had to change, and I ended up taking a job as a land surveyor.
I don’t like inefficiency, so I taught myself programming and C++ so that I could automate all the tedious calculations that surveyors perform. I was soon working more as a developer than a surveyor which led me down a road to GIS software development which is the perfect combination of my childhood curiosity to understand the landscape around us with the need to do it efficiently.
After finishing a degree that combined GIS and software engineering I started work with Laser Scan in Cambridge England. There I worked with some great people as we built cutting edge object-oriented spatial database technology and the GIS applications that consumed it. We (my wife Julie and I) moved to the US to join Esri 20 years ago. I joined in the early days of ArcGIS (called ARC/INFO 8 back then) and have been working on the project ever since.
Q: Were you in your current role when the ArcGIS Server REST API was released? If so, I’d like to know more about how that came to be. Was it a conscious choice to create such a developer-focused product?
A: My role at Esri has always been working on the developer technology, initially this was with ArcObjects technology, but it has evolved into my current role. The story of how our ArcGIS Server REST API came to be isn’t that different from other great things in software. A couple of developers having an idea. There wasn’t a master plan, just some hardworking developers with a vision and who, like many in the industry, thought there must be something better than SOAP-based services. Not everyone thought it was a great idea at the time, but it didn’t take long before it was obvious that it was the future.
Q: Although it was a bit ugly, ArcIMS was successful and widely adopted. In contrast, the first framework out of ArcGIS Server, the Web ADF, was pretty crummy out of the gate (in my opinion). But the REST API is/was awesome, and allowed all kinds of integrations that weren’t possible before its release. Did you know that you had “a hit” on your hands?
A: As I said before it didn’t take long before everyone understood what this meant for how we built the ArcGIS system and in turn how our developer community would be able to build on top of it.
Q: What are your thoughts on the debate over the REST API as an OGC standard? Was it worth going through that wringer?
A: Getting standards through the process is always challenging, we felt it was a good idea to offer it up as a standard. Standards are needed as we build out systems of increasing complexity and interdependency, personally I think if the REST API was a standard it would have made for a better world. The recent work by the OGC on their community standards is a good compromise for this sort of thing. It allows for industry leaders to develop innovative technologies but still do it in an open way where others can benefit.
Q: Do you think the REST API will ever be more popular than the shapefile? Both are foundational to a lot of open data efforts such as OpenAddresses, but the latter has its own Twitter account.
A: There is only one way to find that out and that would be to interview the REST API, I’m sure there would be a few choice quotes, and after all it isn’t fair to give shapefile all the limelight.
Q: The https://developers.arcgis.com/ website lists 10 different APIs and SDKs. Sometimes I can’t remember if I’m talking about the REST API or the Javascript API. Is there any danger that you’ve got too many?
A: Wouldn’t life be much simpler if we only had to think about one technology! The truth is having all these APIs is a huge investment, but it is something our developers require as they build out their solutions. Developers get to choose the best technology for the problem they are solving knowing there is an API that they can use when they work with ArcGIS. As an example, take the ArcGIS Runtime technology for building native applications. We have 6 APIs, 3 of which support cross-platform development running on 6 platforms. The APIs are used to build apps ranging in use from mission-critical to consumer games. Developers choose technology sometimes because it is their preferred environment, sometimes because the system they are integrating with, and sometimes because it’s cool. At Esri we try not to pick favorites.
Q: What is the future of desktop GIS? Do you think ArcGIS Pro leverages APIs effectively?
A: I think it does. ArcMap as you know is built using the ArcObjects API. The story 20 years ago was a great one – you use the same APIs to build on top of ArcMap that we use to build it. Very powerful, but unfortunately also very restrictive as we evolved the architecture. Nothing could be dropped in case developers were relying on it, so we kept adding which kept the power but added complexity. The ArcGIS Pro API is different. The API is specifically designed for customizers and extenders. The internals of ArcGIS Pro are based on a new services-based architecture that decouples the UX from the underlying data tier, allowing for a responsive UX and powerful data processing. Time will tell.
Q: Like many of our other interviewees, you’re an “outdoor type”. When you’re hiking or skiing, do you bring your geo tools – or your geo mindset – along for the ride? Or do you need to take a break from work when you’re in the great outdoors?
A: It is great to get away from it all and there is no better place than the Sierra Nevada Mountains. In the mountains I like to keep the geo tools simple and only take the basics: a map and compass. In Scotland there were many days spent enveloped in cloud and without basic navigation skills you could get into real trouble, so it’s something I learned how to use early on.
Q: We’re not quite sure if you’d call yourself a geohipster. On the one hand, you work for Esri (points deducted). On the other, you’ve taught yourself to code merely to reduce inefficiency (points added). Knowing that we’re sending you a t-shirt or mug either way, want to give us a ruling?
A: Honestly, I don’t like labels, titles, etc. they only help give people preconceived notions of who you are and what to expect. Over the years it’s obvious to me that it is your actions that count, your readers can decide.
Q: Any final words of wisdom for our readers?
A: Be true to yourself, work hard and make a difference, because the world needs people like you who understand how to make the world a better place.