FME Weekly Quiz: November (1) Results

Hi FME'ers,

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

1) An fmw file stores what?

• A Workbench
• A Workflow
• A Workmate
• A Workshop
• A Workspace

It's a WORKSPACE!

Now, I know lots of folk say workbench, as in "I'm creating a workbench to..." - and we've even considered changing it because of this - but the actual terminology is a "workspace". Sometimes we use the term "workflow" but that's meant in general term, such as "my workflow involves using Workbench to create a workspace".

And if you picked either of the other two answers, then I really don't know what software you are using!

2) An fds file stores what?

• A Custom Coordinate System
• A Custom Transformer
• A Custom Format
• A Custom Dataset
• A Custom Suit

Well here's a blast-from-the-past. It's rare to see a custom format and yet... I just used one the other week. For those not in the know, a custom format is like a custom transformer that includes a reader. Then you can add it like a reader to your workspace and include pre-processing.

My football analysis workspaces use a custom format, because they all read the same data and that data needs the same pre-processing every time.

Generally a custom coordinate system is stored in a .fme file (though I believe it can be any extension) and a custom transformer is a .fmx file.

If you said custom dataset, then you weren't far off. The early name for a custom format was "custom datasource" hence the .fds extension.

3) Who or what won a Lifetime Achievement Award at the FME Worldwide User Conference in 2017?

• The Unix Operating System
• Esri
• Bill Murray
• The Shapefile Format
• The FME Lizard

It was the Shapefile format. I don't know exactly how old it is, but it's been around as long as I can remember (and I've been around quite a while too)! I can't find a decent picture of the award ceremony, but here's a still from a video...

I don't know who might take the award at next year's conference. My money is on either dxf format or Bill Murray. Both would be worthy winners.

4) Here are some useful FME Server features. Which was NOT implemented for FME 2019?

• FME Server Projects on FME Hub
• User Password Policies
• Job Filtering by Status
• Token Management
• Kubernetes Deployment

Here's where the questions start to get harder. The answer here is Token Management. All of the others are brand new features in FME Server 2019. Token management got a big new update for 2019, but it already existed in previous Server versions.

Server Projects already existed too, but now they can be specifically shared on the FME Hub, which is new for 2019. Previously you could ask for a password reset, but now the administrators have the ability to set policies on passwords. Similarly you could filter jobs, but not by job status. You can now. And Kubernetes deployment might have been tried out previously, but now it is live and official and appears on our web site:

The Top 15 Features in FME2019 article is where you can find this info - and a wider list of new FME2019 features.

5) According to automated feedback, which of these transformers is least used?

• DecimalDegreesCalculator (292nd)
• DensityCalculator (360th)
• NetworkCostCalculator (308th)
• RasterAspectCalculator (382nd)
• StatisticsCalculator (19th)

See, this information is freely available on our web site on the transformers page. I don't know if it counts as cheating to look it up. I'd say that's fine. So if you were worrying about looking up answers, it's not a problem.

Anyway, when you install FME you get the option to provide feedback primarily about which transformers and formats you are using. That's how we can rank the transformers on that web page in order of popularity. It's interesting and it helps us prioritize where to put our development resources. It's why the StatisticsCalculator (19th) gets way more attention than the RasterAspectCalculator (382nd and last of this list).

6) Which query did our support team get asked through Livechat last week?

• What tires should I buy for my Mercedes s550?
• What is the capital city of Armenia?
• In which Shakespeare play does Prospero appear?
• What is the callsign for British Airways flights?
• Are ghosts real?

I could have answered any one of the last four questions (Yerevan, The Tempest, Speedbird, No) but I wouldn't have any idea about what tires to buy; so it's a pity that was the question asked! But then I think this was the livechat equivalent of spam and not an FME user online.

Why did I add this question to the quiz? Because I thought it might be fun to have an "impossible" question each week. Just to make sure anyone who gets 6/6 really earned it (or got very lucky).

Anyway, if you have a burning question to ask our support team - preferably FME related please - then our livechatters are online during Vancouver office hours. So give them a chat. They are very good and can help with most FME issues.

Let's see what the scores are. It's a bit easier now I've revamped the quiz architecture to provide some (FME-powered) reports.

Here's the general info:

• Quiz Week: 5 (Nov 11/2019)
• Number of Entries: 30
• Best Score: 5
• Worst Score: 0
• Average Score: 2.97
• Easiest Question: 3 (26)
• Hardest Question: 4 (3)

So the "impossible" question wasn't the most difficult! 7/30 people got that one right. The most difficult was the question on FME Server functionality in 2019 (4/30). The easiest was the question on the Lifetime Achievement Award (26/30 correct). Of the 4/30 who got it wrong, three said the FME Lizard and one said Esri.

So who got the best score? Well no-one got 6/6 and only one person got 5/6: none other than last month's winner, @jdh

Congratulations to you all - whatever your score - and I hope to see you all next week for another set of fun FME-related questioning.