| There is a hidden revolution going on: geography is moving
from niche to the mainstream. News reports routinely include
maps and satellite images. More and more pieces of
equipment⎯cell phones, cars, computers⎯now
contain Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. Many of
the major database vendors have made geographic data types
standard in their flagship products.
GIS for Web Developers introduces Geographic Information
Systems (GIS) in simple terms and demonstrates hands-on
uses. With this book, you'll explore popular websites like
maps.google.com, see the technologies they use, and learn
how to create your own. Written with the usual Pragmatic
Bookshelf humor and real-world experience, GIS for Web
Developers makes geographic programming concepts accessible
to the common developer.
This book will demystify GIS and show you how to make GIS
work for you. You'll learn the buzzwords and explore ways to
geographically-enable your own applications. GIS is not a
fundamentally difficult domain, but there is a barrier to
entry because of the industry jargon. This book will show
you how to "walk the walk" and "talk the talk" of a
geographer.
You'll learn how to find the vast amounts of free geographic
data that's out there and how to bring it all together.
Although this data is free, it's scattered across the web on
a variety of different sites, in a variety of incompatible
formats. You'll see how to convert it among several popular
formats⎯including plain text, ESRI Shapefiles, and
Geography Markup Language (GML).
With this book in hand, you'll become a real geographic
programmer using the Java programming language. You'll find
plenty of working code examples in Java using some of the
many GIS-oriented applications and APIs. You'll be able to:
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Biting the hand that feeds IT 
Published by: THE PRAGMATIC BOOKSHELF