Philcarto : histoire de vie d’un logiciel de cartographie

Abstract

Philcarto is a software designed to map the statistical data, widely used in social sciences. Two other software, Phildigit and ShapeSelect make the digitalization of the base maps easy and ensure the use of cartographic covers coming from the geographical information systems Mapinfo and ArcGis. The development of these three software required about fifteen years. This article presents and discusses the successive choices, failures and successes which led to a stable product, didactic and accurate from a scientific point of view. The presentation of the historical context conducts to justify the initial effort. The necessity for the geographer to not be supplanted by engineering himself is shown. The brief presentation of the functionalities offered by the three free software leads to comparative advantages over the expensive products. The fourth chapter clarifies and justifies the technical choices: operating systems, user interface, format of the base maps, selection of the statistical methods (multivariate and exploratory data analysis). Then comes the topic of the publication of the programs: diffusion model (on Internet) and effective public (in higher education, research and other professional environments). Series of recommendations relating to various aspects of the scientific software development are finally exposed: source code, documentation, improvement of the data-processing culture of the geographers, scientific evaluation, financing and promotion.

Keywords

• cartography
• evaluation
• statistics
• software
• programming
• publication