FME Weekly Quiz: November (2) Results

Hi FME'ers,

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

1) Which of these is NOT a real format in FME?

• Dynamic (Any Schema)
• FME Workspace (FMW)
• Generic (Any Format)
• Schema (Any Format)
• Schema (From Table)

The answer here is "Dynamic (Any Schema)". Any existing format can be made dynamic, by simply ticking this box in the feature type parameters:

But dynamic is not a specific format. All of the others are. To list them:

• FME Workspace (FMW): Reads a list of formats, datasets, transformers (and so much more) from an existing workspace file. Great for analyzing and cataloging your workspaces.
• Generic (Any Format): Let's you read a dataset regardless of format (FME will even try and guess the format if you wish). Also a writer which is great for self-serve data download systems.
• Schema (Any Format): Let's you read the schema of a dataset, rather than its contents. See last week's QOTW for more info.
• Schema (From Table): Let's you read a schema that has been defined as a table. This is mostly for use in creating a dynamic output schema.

2) At the FME Worldwide User Conference, Safe staff help users with their FME work while dressed up as what?

• Tour Guides
• Doctors
• Mechanics
• Police Officers
• Lizards

It's doctors. There's even a Twitter account for them, though it's rarely used these days (Livechat is a better method of getting through to a support person). Here's our "Holistic Workspace Therapist" in action!

But I think the others would all be great costumes if we wanted - even Lizards!

3) The FME Desktop Basic Training Course is made up of five parts. Which is part four?

• Readers and Writers
• Best Practice
• Practical Transformer Use
• Advanced Attribute Handling
• FME and Esri Utility Network Migration

The answer is Practical Transformer Use. The training course (which is free, by the way, and only 3 hours per day online) starts out with an introduction to basic translations and goes on to basic transformations on day 2. Day 3 talks about workspace design (mostly for readers and writers) and then day 4 goes into specific transformations in more depth. We call it Practical Transformer Use. The final day is Best Practice. It pulls together all of the other subjects and explains the techniques we recommend for using them all.

4) In FME Server you can organize and sort your scheduled tasks on the basic of...

• Group
• Category
• Department
• User
• Zodiac Signs

Technically you can organize them any way you like - for example I could actually assign each to a different zodiac sign - but the term used in the interface is Category, so that's what I am looking for.

If you do create categories such as Libra, Capricorn, Gemini, and Scorpio, then I'd be interested to know why! Perhaps Scorpio workspaces have a "dynamic" personality?!

5) What is the most downloaded item (transformer, format, web connection, etc) on the FME Hub?

• VertexExtractor
• NoFeaturesTester
• GeographicAreaCalculator
• FMEServerEmailGenerator
• Geocider

It is the VertexExtractor (4,930 downloads at the time of counting). At the other end of the scale, my X11toPalette Workspace has only been downloaded once! Give it a try... please! It creates a whole new - and very extensive - bookmark palette, which I actually find quite useful.

As for the others:

NoFeaturesTester (2,822 downloads): I use this quite often. But it's possible we'll add some official transformers like this to act as logic gates. So keep an eye out.

GeographicAreaCalculator (2,016 downloads): A useful transformer to measure area in any units, regardless of coordinate system. The usual AC just works on whatever the source CS units are.

FMEServerEmailGenerator (2,154 downloads): Along with the BingGeocoder, this is the most "starred" item, i.e. the one most people have tagged as a favourite (2125 downloads).

Geocider: I meant to put Geocoder, but I like the typo. I wonder what GeoCider would taste like? Anyway, although there are various geocoders on the hub, the actual Geocoder transformer is not a hub item; it is installed with FME.

6) THE IMPOSSIBLE QUESTION: Safe's Ryan Cragg was interviewed by the media last year on what subject?

• Hand Sanitizer
• Cheese Sandwiches
• Online Banking
• Peacocks
• Umbrellas

It was... peacocks (although peafowl is apparently the better term)!

It was reported that there are a large flock of feral peacocks in parts of Surrey, and they cause a nuisance by damaging cars, squawking at early hours, and pooping in yards. Poor Ryan was sorely affected by their actions. I hope it's been resolved to the satisfaction of both peacocks and residents.

Let's see what the scores are. Here's the general info:

• Quiz Week: 6 (Nov 18/2019)
• Number of Entries: 19
• Best Score: 6
• Worst Score: 1
• Average Score: 4.26
• Easiest Question: 2 (18)
• Hardest Question: 6 (10)

It must have been way more easy this week, given the average went up from 2.97 to 4.26. And more than half of you did get the "impossible" question correct! I suspect a judicious bit of Googling there!

So congratulations to you all. But more specifically, congratulations to @jdh, @samisnunu, @sipsysigh, @mirco and @jelle who all got all six correct! Here's the full list of scores:

Congratulations to @philippeb too for bouncing back from his poor score last week!

And here are the cumulative scores for this month (you'll perhaps have noticed that I'm making it a monthly league table from here on):