Model Builder

ArcGIS 9.x has this funky thing called "Model Builder" that lets you build flow charts* and then execute them. It only crashes sometimes. Once you have a flow chart built and working, then you can export the code (Model->Export->To Script->Python).

This gives you a starting point for writing your own Python Geoprocessing scripts for use as components in Model Builder.

• I think they call them "UML diagrams" now or something esoteric like that.

In the beginning in programming classes, they made us draw flow charts. We all wrote the code first, then did the flow charts so that we'd get credit for doing our homework. Then they invented "top-down" programming, and we'd write our program then we'd to do pseudo-code to get all the points. Now we have to design flow charts first, then generate the code so that we can fix it up and make it run. Once you export the flow chart into the code, you can't go backwards so it's safe to throw the flow chart away.