All articles.
Notes on GIS, AI-assisted development, and the pattern that works everywhere.
Talking to Your Map — How Esri's Agentic Pattern Works
The ArcGIS JS SDK 5.0 agentic pattern explained: why your map needs vector embeddings before an LLM can query it, and what the natural language → layer → answer pipeline actually looks like.
Arcade Is a Second Language — AI Makes It Fluent
Arcade's missing functions, context-specific gotchas, and three different UI locations make it a specialist skill. AI changes that — if you know what context to give it.
The Bus Theory of GIS Development
What happens to your maps when you're gone? Thin HTML files outlive their authors. Experience Builder apps don't. The bus theory is the best argument for learning the SDK.
When IT Says No — A GIS Developer's Response Framework
Custom GIS tooling gets flagged by IT for the same five reasons every time. Here's the technical response to each one — and why the custom stack is often more auditable than the tools IT already approved.
Security First — Building Tools That Assume Breach
The mindset shift that changes how you build GIS tools: don't ask whether your data is secure — assume it isn't, and build accordingly. What that means in practice for field names, schemas, and live data.
What I Learned Past the EB Ceiling
Dynamic visual encoding and AI-powered hit-test analysis — two techniques from real operational GIS work, and why they matter for your GIS career.
Stop Hitting the Wall — ArcGIS SDK + AI
Why ExB and Dashboards hit a ceiling — and how the ArcGIS JavaScript SDK, paired with AI, removes it.
The Pattern Transfers: What AI Unlocks Beyond ArcGIS
The ArcGIS SDK was just where I learned the pattern. Every complex toolkit — D3, Three.js, Plotly, Python — works identically. Here's what that actually means.
Geomasking, YubiKeys, and Blast Radius — Security in Practice
Hardware keys, geomasking, zero-credential code, and blast radius thinking. Security in GIS work isn't a checklist — it's a design constraint that shapes every decision.
OAuth Without the Pain — Authentication for GIS Developers
OAuth scared me for years. Then I understood the actual flow — five steps, one non-obvious rule. Here's what I wish someone had shown me.
The Lego Principle — How Modern GIS Tools Actually Fit Together
GIS tools aren't monoliths. They're bricks. Feature Layers, Web Maps, Experience Builder, the SDK, Vercel — each snaps onto the next. Once you see the connectors, building gets fast.
The Thin HTML Deploy Pattern — From Prompt to Live URL in 8 Minutes
Describe a tool in plain English. Get working code. Push to GitHub. Live on Vercel. Under 10 minutes. No servers, no build steps, no DevOps. This is the actual workflow.