Intro

Interview with Rainer Bruggemann

Q

We have been working together the PyHasse project since 2011, do you remember?

A

Yes, we met the first time at the PyCon-conference in Leipzig, 2011.

Q

I was interested in your software, what was your motivation for developing PyHasse?

A

As usual, I wanted to reproduce the results of a scientific paper by hand. Then it turns out that the calculations were too tedious, to be performed manually. I wrote a small program, using the language Python. Python was recommended to me by a scientific colleague and friend. One of these little programs was the starting point for PyHasse.

Q

Who else is using PyHasse?

A

That's a difficult question. In the last years I sent a CD with the PyHasse-code to many scientists. However, as usual, most of them give no feedback. Active users today, so far I know, are around 10 groups in various parts of the world.

Q

The name "PyHasse" obviously indicates that it is a Python-based program. Why Python?

A

As I explained, Python was recommended to me by a scientific colleague and friend back in 2003. It appeared to be fairly easy to work with, so since then I have been using Python for many scientific and personal purposes. As part of my mathematical education I learnt ALGOL, later I had to program using FORTRAN, then BASIC (dialects). In comparison with these three languages, I prefer Python.

Q

In the PyHasse software you are using Tkinter (Tcl/TK) to get fast input and output. Now we are working on a web based version. How will the web based version be different from the stand-alone version that has been available so far?

A

The web based version is more flexible. Tkinter is easy to be programed, and as such ideal for me. However, apparently it is not adaptable for web-sites.

Q

If I am interested in PyHasse, how can I get the software?

A

Up to now, you can to contact me. Then I will prepare a CD that I will send to you by ordinary mail. One main reason for working on an Internet version is that this time-consuming procedure can be avoided. A further reason for the web based version is that due to my experience people using PyHasse will typically apply only few central modules of the package. These will be available in the web version that in the future will be visible and available for a larger circle of interested scientists. For a scientist that still want to use the more sophisticated modules PyHasse will still be available through the old procedure, but I foresee that only few people will use that possibility.

Q

If I have an idea or suggestion or question, where can I get help?

A

Simply by contacting me! Perhaps I already have a solution or can find one by minor additional programming. If not, the partial order community may help. If still no help is available, I could recommend you to visit our conferences where the community meets every second year for a couple of days. This year the conference will be held in Florence, Italy, 9th and 10th April 2015.