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Recently I've been spending a lot of time converting perfectly good field names like "Percent of citizens age 25 and over with a bachelor's degree or higher" into things like "edbchogtr" to meet the DBF's 10 character field name limit.

In another thread (“Oddities” in the Shapefile technical specification), geospatialpython commented that "Despite the shapefile format's flaws, oddities, and limitations it persists stubbornly in and around the field of GIS. Every other attempt to replace it has been too bloated for simple vector storage or too proprietary."

This activity coupled with Mr. Lawhead's comment has me wondering:

• have any explicit attempts ever been made to replace the shapefile as GIS's ubiquitous data storage and interchange format?
• Are there any contenders?
• If there have been competing formats, why have they failed?
• Has Esri refused to support them, or is the story simply one of technological inertia?
• If there haven't been attempts... why not?

It seems like we could do a little better for ourselves, both as GIS developers and users.

Recently I've been spending a lot of time converting perfectly good field names like "Percent of citizens age 25 and over with a bachelor's degree or higher" into things like "edbchogtr" to meet the DBF's 10 character field name limit.

In another thread (“Oddities” in the Shapefile technical specification), geospatialpython commented that "Despite the shapefile format's flaws, oddities, and limitations it persists stubbornly in and around the field of GIS. Every other attempt to replace it has been too bloated for simple vector storage or too proprietary."

This activity coupled with Mr. Lawhead's comment has me wondering:

• have any explicit attempts ever been made to replace the shapefile as GIS's ubiquitous data storage and interchange format?
• Are there any contenders?
• If there have been competing formats, why have they failed?
• Has Esri refused to support them, or is the story simply one of technological inertia?
• If there haven't been attempts... why not?

It seems like we could do a little better for ourselves, both as GIS developers and users.

Recently I've been spending a lot of time converting perfectly good field names like "Percent of citizens age 25 and over with a bachelor's degree or higher" into things like "edbchogtr" to meet the DBF's 10 character field name limit.

In another thread (“Oddities” in the Shapefile technical specification), geospatialpython commented that "Despite the shapefile format's flaws, oddities, and limitations it persists stubbornly in and around the field of GIS. Every other attempt to replace it has been too bloated for simple vector storage or too proprietary."

This activity coupled with Mr. Lawhead's comment has me wondering: have any explicit attempts ever been made to replace the shapefile as GIS's ubiquitous data storage and interchange format? Are there any contenders? If there have been competing formats, why have they failed? Has Esri refused to support them, or is the story simply one of technological inertia? If there haven't been attempts... why not? It seems like we could do a little better for ourselves, both as GIS developers and users.

(I got a really interesting history lesson from the "Oddities" thread. Please feel encouraged to drop any relevant tidbits about defunct products or companies that you have bouncing around.)

Recently I've been spending a lot of time converting perfectly good field names like "Percent of citizens age 25 and over with a bachelor's degree or higher" into things like "edbchogtr" to meet the DBF's 10 character field name limit.

In another thread (“Oddities” in the Shapefile technical specification), geospatialpython commented that "Despite the shapefile format's flaws, oddities, and limitations it persists stubbornly in and around the field of GIS. Every other attempt to replace it has been too bloated for simple vector storage or too proprietary."

This activity coupled with Mr. Lawhead's comment has me wondering:

• have any explicit attempts ever been made to replace the shapefile as GIS's ubiquitous data storage and interchange format?
• Are there any contenders?
• If there have been competing formats, why have they failed?
• Has Esri refused to support them, or is the story simply one of technological inertia?
• If there haven't been attempts... why not?

It seems like we could do a little better for ourselves, both as GIS developers and users.

Recently I've been spending a lot of time converting perfectly good field names like "Percent of citizens age 25 and over with a bachelor's degree or higher" into things like "edbchogtr" to meet the DBF's 10 character field name limit.

In another thread (“Oddities” in the Shapefile technical specification), geospatialpython commented that "Despite the shapefile format's flaws, oddities, and limitations it persists stubbornly in and around the field of GIS. Every other attempt to replace it has been too bloated for simple vector storage or too proprietary."

This activity coupled with Mr. Lawhead's comment has me wondering: have any explicit attempts ever been made to replace the shapefile as GIS's ubiquitous data storage and interchange format? Are there any contenders? If there have been competing formats, why have they failed? Has ESRI refused to support them, or is the story simply one of technological inertia? If there haven't been attempts... why not? It seems like we could do a little better for ourselves, both as GIS developers and users.

(I got a really interesting history lesson from the "Oddities" thread. Please feel encouraged to drop any relevant tidbits about defunct products or companies that you have bouncing around.)

Recently I've been spending a lot of time converting perfectly good field names like "Percent of citizens age 25 and over with a bachelor's degree or higher" into things like "edbchogtr" to meet the DBF's 10 character field name limit.

In another thread (“Oddities” in the Shapefile technical specification), geospatialpython commented that "Despite the shapefile format's flaws, oddities, and limitations it persists stubbornly in and around the field of GIS. Every other attempt to replace it has been too bloated for simple vector storage or too proprietary."

This activity coupled with Mr. Lawhead's comment has me wondering: have any explicit attempts ever been made to replace the shapefile as GIS's ubiquitous data storage and interchange format? Are there any contenders? If there have been competing formats, why have they failed? Has Esri refused to support them, or is the story simply one of technological inertia? If there haven't been attempts... why not? It seems like we could do a little better for ourselves, both as GIS developers and users.

(I got a really interesting history lesson from the "Oddities" thread. Please feel encouraged to drop any relevant tidbits about defunct products or companies that you have bouncing around.)