PrintFirst, this lesson was an overview of the historic and foundational aspects of implementing a spatial system. Tomlinson's discussion is of importance since so many organizations focus only on the technical parts of implementing a computer system, and in the process don't really get the whole organizational picture of what is unique about spatial system and waste a great deal of time and money. A main theme through this lesson is that spatial system design is a team sport..
Second, the lesson introduced the role of systems analyst along with other stakeholders in the context of systems analysis and design. It also introduced the building blocks of Zackman’s Framework for Information Systems Architecture and is compatible with the idea that a system consists of four distinct layers: data, logic, presentation, and networks. These layers become the basis for distributed spatial systems which partitions or distributes various aspects of each of the first three layers (data, process, and interface) across the fourth layer (networks). Whitten’s Chapter 3 provided an introduction to the principles and processes used to develop information systems.