[Community] line_locate_point() in Python, and general confusion of a GIS newbie

[Sean Gillies]

On Aug 18, 2009, at 7:30 PM, Michael Elsdörfer wrote:

> Sean,
>
>> useful outside the context of a database. A nearest point algorithm
>> wouldn't be all that hard to implement in Python and I'm willing to
>> help you find a good home for it. Maybe in a Shapely analytic
>> package
>
> So generally, Shapely would be the thing to use if I want to those  
> kinds
> of calculations using Geometries in Python?

Yes.

>
> The PostGIS code indeed doesn't look all that complicated. Though I'm
> slightly in a hurry for the particular project I need this for, so I
> might just have to go with using PostgreSQL for now - not my ideal
> solution, but probably quicker.
>
> Michael

I've seen people opt to load their data into postgres for processing  
only, not for any enterprise data management reasons. If PostGIS has  
the functions, I can't see any reason why not. IMO, for functions not  
in PostGIS, and where data management is not a concern, development  
using Python would be faster and more sustainable than development  
using C, SQL, PL/pgSQL.

--
Sean