Hi FME'ers,

Here are the answers and results to Monday's quiz:

1) FME is a Data Integration platform, one aspect of which is Spatial ETL. What does ETL stand for?

• Extract Tool for Location Data
• Expedited Transformation Lifecycle
• Enterprise Tools for Local Government
• Extract, Transform, Load
• Eat, Transform, Love

It means Extract, Transform, and Load. It does not mean any of the others, nor does it mean Express Toll Lane or Extra-Terrestrial Lifeform. At least, not in the FME sense.

And, although I'm sure a book called Eat, Transform, Love would be great - life changing, in fact - it's not the correct answer here.

Incidentally, although FME is often called a Spatial ETL tool - we used to call it that as well - ETL is just one method by which FME can achieve data integration. FME Server and Cloud (for example) go way beyond simple ETL. Find out more at What is Data Integation?

2) In Workbench there are five basic actions you can perform on a *writer* feature type. Which of those actions is not available on *reader* feature types?

• Add Feature Type
• Import Feature Type
• Update Feature Type
• Enable/Disable Feature Type
• Remove Feature Type

The answer is that you can't add a feature type to a reader.

As we mention in our basic training, think of a Reader as "What We Have" and a Writer as "What We Want". You can add a writer feature type because you're telling FME this is something you want to get out of the translation. But you can't add a feature type to a reader, because reader feature types have to exist already.

If you want to add an existing feature type, then you use the Import option.

I did just notice that Move Feature Types is another writer option that a reader doesn't have. Again, it's the same reasoning. You can move a feature type from one writer to another because it means I'd now like writer A to create this feature type, instead of writer B.

But with a reader, you can't move feature types because they have to match what already exists.

3) By my count there have been five FME Worldwide User Conferences. Only one took place outside Vancouver. Where?

• Calgary, Alberta
• Annecy, France
• Whistler, British Columbia
• Berlin, Germany
• Hawaii, USA

I'm fairly sure there have been five conferences (2006, 2008, 2009, 2014, 2017). There were two at the SFU Centre for Dialogue in downtown Vancouver (2006, 2008) and another two at the Vancouver Convention Centre (2014, 2017).

But in 2009 the conference took place in Whistler.

It was an unforgettable experience, as all of our conferences are. Here's a great review of the event.

I was going to post a photo, but I can't find one. Not even with searching online or through all of our systems or my old photos archive. Huh. Oh well, instead here's a look at what FME looked like at the time:

It's so... square!

Incidentally, Annecy was the site of various partner-only conferences, and Berlin is (I believe) the site of conterra's FMEDays events. Calgary is the largest stop on the FME World Tour.

Sadly I don't recall an FME event in Hawaii.

4) Every FME User Conference has a highlight entertainment one evening. In the above conference, what was it?

• An improv performer who forgot his lines
• A magician who made his audience disappear
• A singer who couldn't pronounce the letter "R"
• Transformers! Humans in disguise
• A dancing lizard

So our user conferences are great learning experiences, but we can throw a mean party too. Check out the photos from 2017.

In 2009 the entertainment was a bit less sophisticated. It was a magician whose audience disappeared, though not in a magical way. To be fair, the venue was the lodge near the top of Whistler Mountain itself, and he was competing against stunning views of mountains, water, and islands.

But yes, 2017 had a sort of "humans in disguise" theme:

Incidentally, the singer who couldn't pronounce the letter "R", is a plotline from the British TV show, Only Fools and Horses, in case you were wondering where you had heard it before.

5) Which of these "Grid" names is not a real transformer?

• 2DGridAccumulator
• 2DGridCreator
• ArcSDEGridSnapper
• GridInQuestIIReprojector
• GridSquareEliminator

The Grid Square Eliminator (aka Grid Square Removal System) is not a transformer, but rather an artillery weapon. The rest are currently all FME transformers, though I hear that the ArcSDEGridSnapper may not be around too much longer, since the ArcSDE Legacy format it worked alongside (SDE30) has already been deprecated.

A common wrong answer was the GridInQuestIIReprojector, which is actually a real transformer that handles coordinate system transformations for the Irish National Grid.

6) Where did co-founder Dale Lutz go on vacation in 1995?

• Ethiopia
• Turkey
• Pakistan
• Bolivia
• New Zealand

In 1995 Dale went on vacation to Turkey. Here's the proof in glorious 8-bit GIF imagery (which - like an onion on your belt - was the style at the time):

How would you know this answer? Haven't you browsed his web site at dalelutz.com?! Not updated since 1996 so I've no idea where he's been on vacation since.

Time for the scores. I've pretty much decided that each month will be a new series of quizzes, so not only do we have today's scores, but the overall November scores.

First of all, here's the general info:

• Quiz Week: 7 (Nov 25/2019)
• Number of Entries: 31 (highest number of entries in any one week)
• Best Score: 6
• Worst Score: 0
• Average Score: 3.45
• Easiest Question: 1 (29/31)
• Hardest Question: 4 (5/31)

So the "impossible" question wasn't the hardest one (again). Nine people knew that Dale went to Turkey in 1995. Although maybe that should be eight people, since one of the entrants was Dale himself!

Almost everyone knows what ETL stands for (well done to our marketing team)!

Three people got 6/6 correct: @jdh, @samisnunu, and @daleatsafe. Well done to you all.

And here's the list of the top players for November (scoring at least ten points)

Great work everyone. The winner is @jdh with only one question wrong over three quizzes!

Next week's quiz... well I'm going to try something different, so keep an eye out for that.