Developing ArcGIS 9 extension - what do I need to get started?

Question

I got the 'honor' to port an existing ArcGis 3.x Avenue script to ArcGIS 9.x ArcObjects.

What do I need to get started? (So far I don't even have a copy of ArcGIS)

From ESRI's developer website it seems I need to buy an EDN annual subscription for $1,500 - does this contain a developers copy of ArcGIS, or will I have to buy that, too?

The two Avenue scripts I need to port are rather small: one selects shapes for some searchterms it gets via OLE/DDE, one sends the selected shapes to another OLE/DDE application.
As far as I understand ArcObjects I will probably drop OLE/DDE and just call the appropriate objects via COM.

Answer 1

Hi,

It is another $500 for a ArcGIS Desktop license - http://store.esri.com/esri/showdetl.cfm?SID=2&Product_ID=1046&Category_ID=168

You'll then need to make a DLL that contains a custom tool that can be added to the desktop application. .NET / Visual Studio is probably the best approach.

You can prototype the application in VBA directly in the map document - this makes it easier to debug and test, but VBA will be phased out after version 9.4 so not a long term solution.

By the sound of your application I would investigate using SQL Server 2008 Spatial, or Oracle XE instead of ArcObjects. You could do most of the sptatial queries in the database and use .NET and a web mapping API for the front end. It would be far more flexible this way.