Recently I had need to evaluate a Proprietary Desktop GIS (PDG for short) to document the procedure for doing a Thing for a client. To avoid any mud-slinging and name calling , I’m naming neither the PDG or the Thing, I’ll just say that the Thing is something that the PDG claims to be able to do. This is not a blog post excoriating PDGs by the way, it’s a reflection on the virtues of simplicity, good documentation, and being honest and open.

So, I download a trial version of the PDG and spend 2 hours installing and licensing it. During this time I have to consult the documentation on exactly what licensing options I wanted for a TRIAL piece of software. I also have to consult the documentation on exactly how to apply the license. No mind, I get the software installed and working and try and do the Thing. I remember from several years ago, last time I tried to do the Thing with the PDG, that it was slightly tricky, but several versions have been and gone, all of which claim to be able to do the Thing. Consequently though, I cut the PDG a bit of slack when it can’t do the Thing, and I try the work-around. Yes, that still works, though I don’t know how you’d guess that from the error messages or the documentation. It’s not ideal to need two methods of doing the Thing but hey ho. I also cut the PDG some slack when it tells me that I can only do the Thing if I adhere to some very unusual naming conventions, which will mean that, should I need to do this for real, I will have a lot of work to do renaming a bunch of stuff.

Let’s take this up a level. I don’t only need to do the Thing, but also the related Slightly More Complicated Thing (SMCT for short) too. I confess that the documentation doesn’t really say out and out that the PDG can do this, but it certainly implies it. Only, it doesn’t seem to be able to without a license for it’s rather more expensive elder brother, the Proprietary Server GIS (PSG for short). However, to explain this to the client, I will need some documentary proof. I can find blog and forum posts admitting it’s true, and for all I know there might be lots of information in the knowledge base for the PDG and PSG but you have to have a customer number to access this and because I am only evaluating the software, I haven’t purchased it yet, so I don’t have one of those.

So, I ask some questions of colleagues, and while waiting for them to get back to me, I try some work-arounds for the SMCT. Needless to say, they don’t work either.

A colleague finally gets back to me. After some incredulity that the PDG really can’t do the SMCT when everything implies that it can, said colleague, in his other role as a re-seller for the PDG rings them up and asks. “Yes, we can do that” says the first person, let me find a Thing-specialist to explain how. “No, we can’t do that” says the Thing-specialist. “Our reasons are very complicated, but here’s some obscure documentation that actually admits that we can’t do it”. We let the client know the good news.

As I said earlier, this is not a post excoriating PDG, it’s a reflection on the virtues of simplicity, good documentation, and being honest and open.

Reflection One: The whole process of installing the PDG and discovering the various methods of doing the Thing was needlessly over-complicated. This may be due to the long history of the PDG, and the enormous feature-set, but it feels like bloat. Complexity and a huge feature-set do not necessarily equate to quality, and similarly simplicity and a smaller feature-set are not a bad thing.

Reflection Two: Why hide documentation behind what’s effectively a pay-wall? Had I actually been in the market for purchasing this software, I would have given up at that point. Documentation should be freely available to everyone.

Reflection Three: We really should not have needed to get a re-seller to ring up, and speak to two different people, just to get a definitive answer on the capabilities of a piece of software. This is wrong on so many levels.

In my opinion, these points have nothing to do with the license applied to the source code of the software, or the name on the box: Don’t fall prey to Zawinski’s Law, do make your documentation comprehensive and easily accessible, and do be honest about your capabilities. I’d pay good money for that.