GearScape is a Geographic Information System platform dedicated to geoprocessing and focused on extensibility, either from the application user interface or with an integrated development environment (IDE) such as eclipse. Gearscape provides a SQL based language for geoprocessing development that lets users without programming skills create, execute and share their own geoprocesses. It includes an editor to assist the geoprocess authoring tasks, a wizard to execute the created geoprocess and a model builder to link geoprocesses between them and produce a bigger one.

Creating geoprocesses with SQL has several advantages over imperative programming. Firstly, SQL is simpler and more concise so maintenance is cheaper, it is less likely to include a bug and the learning curve is smoother. People can master SQL after a week of intensive training. Also, SQL has proven during more than 30 years his data processing qualities. The user can write in one SQL line a process that will take 10 or 20 lines in imperative programming. After that, SQL optimizator selects the optimal execution strategy, takes advantage of indexes, validates input tables, ... and all of this is done automatically.

You can get started installing the software and reading available documentation.