Shapefile
Shapefile is a geospatial vector data format developed by Esri for storing geographic features, such as points, lines, and polygons, along with their attribute data. It is widely used in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for mapping, spatial analysis, and data exchange between different software. Despite its name, a Shapefile actually consists of multiple files (e.g., .shp, .shx, .dbf) that work together to represent spatial and attribute information.
Developers should learn Shapefile when working with GIS applications, environmental modeling, urban planning, or any project requiring spatial data handling, as it is a de facto standard in the industry for compatibility with tools like ArcGIS and QGIS. It is particularly useful for data exchange between systems, legacy data integration, and when interoperability with a wide range of GIS software is needed, though it has limitations like lack of support for complex geometries or Unicode.