Other modules have been developed by third parties and can be downloaded and installed onto the Python installation as needed. Some of the tool libraries, known to Python programmers as modules, are built-in and available as soon as Python is started, while others must be explicitly called using the import keyword to make their functions and classes available. These tools allow Python to perform string manipulations, math computations, and HTTP calls and URL parsing, along with many other functions. Python, when installed, has a basic set of functionality that is referred to as the standard library.
This book will target ArcGIS for Desktop 10.1 and later, and will demonstrate how to make use of Python and its powerful programming libraries (or modules) when crafting complex geospatial analyses. ArcPy has been the official ArcGIS scripting language since ArcGIS 10.0 and has steadily improved in functionality and implementation. Most importantly to GIS Analysts, Python can be used to control ArcGIS tools and Map Documents to produce geospatial data and maps in an organized and speedy manner using the excellent ArcPy module.ĪrcPy is installed with ArcGIS for desktop and ArcGIS for server. It is used in web development, database administration, and even to program robots. Today, Python is a major programming language. It's certainly more fun to say than C, the language on which Python is based.
So he settled on Python, feeling it was a bit edgy and catchy as well. His work group at the time had a tradition of naming programs after TV shows, and he wanted something irreverent and different from its predecessors - ABC, Pascal, Ada, Eiffel, FORTRAN, and others. Python, created by Guido van Rossum in 1989, was named after his favorite comedy troupe, Monty Python.