Module 11 - The end of Class!!! and Toolboxes

This last week in Programming was dedicated to learning how to share toolboxes and script tools for ArcGIS as well as finishing up final projects. Both of these were just the icing on the cake for an awesome class. Not only can I create my own scripts now, I can turn them in to tools and share them with other people who have never used Python before.

I wish I would have learned how to work with Python five years ago and I am excited to continue learning more about it. I will definitely be using Python scripts in the future as I continue to work with ArcGIS and I will be creating tools to share with my coworkers. The most useful thing I learned in this course is how to use a Python script to make large amounts of spatial data more manageable. I can now write and run a script to search the attributes of a point file, select a particular value, and clip that specific data from a 500,000 point file without opening a map. Now I can also string multiple processes together with a script, model, or script tool which will save a ton of time.

The most interesting thing I learned was how simple Python is to use and understand. I wanted to learn how to write scripts for several years but I was afraid of how complex the process would be. I had no knowledge of programming languages before this course other than how confusing they sounded when other people talked about them. I’m not saying Python is super easy because it surely stumped me a few times, but it is not something people should be afraid to try out.