
PostGIS 2.1.0 Released - pella
http://postgis.net/2013/08/17/postgis-2-1-0
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FatalBaboon
I'm not an expert, but simply removing the sidebar dramatically improves
readability. Other than that, it looks very feature rich for a 'simple'
spatial database extender.

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Demiurge
Yeah, GIS requires a lot of features. Geometry, data... PostGIS is really
without alternatives :)

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dagw
_PostGIS is really without alternatives_

unless you're willing to send Oracle a blank check.

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olefoo
Or ESRI. Oracle was rather late to the Geospatial party.

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dagw
ESRI makes complementing, not competing products. Most big ESRI users use
Oracle in my experience.

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paozac
I wish the geospatial features were included in the main postgres
distribution, rather than being an extension.

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jeffdavis
Can you expand on that?

PostgreSQL has spent a lot of effort on the extension framework ("create
extension") to make it easier to support more external modules. If there is a
particular area that needs improving, please elaborate.

Making external modules a normal part of the ecosystem, like with ruby (and
other popular languages), is the way forward for postgres and has some major
advantages.

For instance, given that PostGIS 2.1.0 was just released today, it would make
it into 9.4 (as 9.3 is already feature frozen), and 9.4 will be released in
about a year. Because it's an extension, you can install it in 9.2 today, or
9.3 when it comes out in a month or so.

Also, just plain modularity, division of responsibilities, allowing for
different licensing, and lowering the barrier for contribution are huge wins.
The same reasons that ruby has gems.

So, hopefully we can address the concerns with extensions rather than build
PostGIS into core.

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paozac
I would like the geospatial features to be immediately available, and not
having to enable them in each individual database. PostGIS setup is well
described but I've had a situation where it turned out to be painful. Anyway
now I see the reasons behind the separate module approach and I think it makes
sense.

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Bjoern
Interesting question, what are good resources to find geo data for different
areas around the world?

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olefoo
For the US; there is a fairly comprehensive collection geographic data sets
available from the National Atlas
[http://www.nationalatlas.gov/atlasftp-1m.html](http://www.nationalatlas.gov/atlasftp-1m.html)
all freely available and public domain. And of course the US Census
[http://www.census.gov/geo/maps-
data/data/tiger.html](http://www.census.gov/geo/maps-data/data/tiger.html)
TIGER/Line dataset.

The World Bank [http://maps.worldbank.org/](http://maps.worldbank.org/) has
maps covering multiple economic indicators, coverage is uneven and it's mostly
focused on the global south.

[http://geocommons.com/](http://geocommons.com/) has a largish assortment of
geodata but the curation and search functionality is a bit confusing and they
require a login.

[http://www.statsilk.com/maps/download-free-shapefile-
maps](http://www.statsilk.com/maps/download-free-shapefile-maps) has a number
of pointers to other resources.

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Demiurge
Looking forward to this making its way into ubuntu-gis ppa.

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nobleach
I waited and waited to find Postgres 9.2 with PostGIS(>=2.0). 9.1 was all that
ever materialized. If you're happy with Postgres 9.1, you can do the soft
upgrade mentioned in the post. You can also roll your own PostGIS if already
are using 9.2. Strangely, Linux is the most annoying platform to install
Postgres and PostGIS on. (usage wise, it's just fine) Uninstalling Postgres on
Ubuntu can lead to some pretty significant troubles (the /etc/ artifacts
remain... don't delete them!!! the distribution packages do NOT contain them)

