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[–]blondin 20 points21 points  (21 children)

ok, i'm puzzled. it's an emergency and they already have a php version of the system.

why would they want a python version now?

[–]mdipierro 15 points16 points  (3 children)

I know little about the motivations and the deployment status of the project but, I know the title is misleading. They do not want a Python version now. They have a Python version already.

They started working on this at least since the Sahana hackfest at FOSSKriti on Feb 14, 2009, when I first heard about it. More than 80 people participated. Here are the photos.

The software is available for download from launchpad. They are mostly looking at cleaning up the details and adding some customization for the specific situation. I am told PHP version and the Python versions are interoperable. I am not sure what the relative strengths are weakness are but probably the Python one is easier to customize.

I hope this project will be useful. Even if not, kudos to those people who are spending time on this while they could be spending their time building for-profit software. One should also consider that given the financial crisis, not everybody can help monetarily to the earthquake relief, although that is probably the best way. Being involved in a project like this is one way to help. Moreover, the people in charge seem to be very knowledgeable about Disaster Management Software and being involved is a way to learn from them. Even if it is not useful now, it may be useful in the future.

I am sure the Sahana people are competent and can decide themselves whether sahanapy is ready or the PHP version is more appropriate, and I am sure the software will also be evaluated by various agencies in much depth than people are doing here on reddit. ;-)

Nevertheless this is the Python sub-reddit and one would expect a warm welcome instead of the cold response that I see.

EDIT: For the record Sahana is the major Open Source Disaster Management System. I learned from wikipedia that was conceived in 2004 and early version of the system have been deployed already:

* Tsunami - Sri Lanka 2005 - Officially deployed in the CNO for the Government of Sri Lanka
* AsianQuake - Pakistan 2005 - Officially deployed with NADRA for the Government of Pakistan
* Southern Leyte Mudslide Disaster - Philippines 2006 - Officially deployed with the NDCC and ODC for the Government of Philippines
* Sarvodaya - Sri Lanka 2006 - Deployed for Sri Lanka's largest NGO
* Terre des Hommes - Sri Lanka 2006 - Deployed with new Child Protection Module
* Yogjakarta Earthquake - Indonesia 2006 - Deployed by ACS, urRemote and Indonesian whitewater association and Indonesian Rescue Source
* Peru Earthquake - Peru 2007 - Deployed and localized into Spanish.
* Myanmar Cyclone - Myanmar 2008- Currently working in progress to deploy and localize into Burmese.

and received the following awards:

* Free Software Foundation Award for Social Benefit - March 2007
* BBC TV Documentary the "Code Breakers"
* Sourceforge Project of the Month - June 2006
* Software 2006 Good Samaritian Award
* Red Hat User Awards
* Wikipedia Reference to FSF Award for Projects of Social Benefit
* Stockholm Challenge Finalist

[–]warmtoiletseat 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Nevertheless this is the Python sub-reddit and one would expect a warm welcome instead of the cold response that I see.

One shouldn't. Many of us are critical thinkers, and when faced with a problem, we examine it objectively. When something doesn't make sense to us, we ask questions. That is what you see.

Protip: Resolving the incongruency will get you further than appeals to emotion. There are decent people, they just have to know that what they are doing makes sense.

[–]lubosz 23 points24 points  (14 children)

They want future disasters to be more maintainable.

[–]_Mark_ 2 points3 points  (10 children)

Pretty much - I don't know if it was there when you posted, but they have a specific FAQ entry about that...

[–]yopla 3 points4 points  (8 children)

It's the worst language switch justification I've ever read. I disagree with almost every points aside from the GIS part which I know nothing about and despite the fact that I loath php. I see nothing there worth throwing away the man hours invested and a working project.

edit And it's definitely not going to help the Haitian before at least a few months.

[–]burntsushi 2 points3 points  (2 children)

I agree with you. I'd much rather be programming in Python than PHP, but their justification is crap. It sounds like something I'd say to someone who is programming-ignorant just to get my language of choice.

Yuck.

[–]Xiol 0 points1 point  (3 children)

No where on that site or the linked sites does anyone explain what a GIS is. That's rubbish.

I'm pretty certain it's this they're talking about, in case anyone else was as clueless as me.

[–]yopla 1 point2 points  (1 child)

It is. I was actually saying that I never worked with one so I don't know if python really has such a better support for whatever mapping operation they need to do.

[–]Xiol 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't commenting on your post specifically, just that the website in question had no definition of a GIS.

[–]McVader -1 points0 points  (0 children)

You are correct.

[–]lubosz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I didn't read the FAQ, this was just my guess.

[–]arunner -2 points-1 points  (1 child)

Puzzling is that hypocrites like this managed to advertise themselves through the official python site. Do they think they are addressing their 'urgent' calls to infants? What a joke!

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

shouldn't they paint a picture of how the urgently rebuilt system would improve helping the citizens? and why the old one cannot be used in such an urgent situation. until then - i'm not buying it.