Introduction to the ArcGIS API for Python

The ArcGIS API for Python is the interface in which you can program your on-premise and cloud GIS web services using Python. In December 2016, ESRI officially released the 1.0 version of the API. It is considered a Pythonic implementation of an API, which means it conforms to the best practices in its design and uses the standard data structures any professional Python programmer would be familiar with. It begins to implement some of the long-held best practices that are used by traditional programmers for the GIS professional. To get started with the API, we will need to configure our machines and begin to learn a new environment for Python programming using Anaconda and Jupyter.

Installing and configuring Anaconda with Jupyter

In the previous chapter, we covered some of the basics of Python 3.5 and the Conda environment used with ArcGIS Pro. If you configured your Conda environment and feel comfortable with it, you can continue to use it. Everything...