New Project: Karte

Nothing ground-breaking today, I’m just starting a new project. Once again it’s university-related, and this time it’s going to have a real-life application. Indeed, the goal is to create a payment card for all pupils. It’s going to allow electronic micro-payments in various places and occasions (parties, cafeteria, …).

There will be a client, used on the points of sale, and a server, probably backed-up by a PostgreSQL database. The client is going to use Qt, and the server will use the very good Twisted framework, that is a Python framework that allows you to easily create and deploy network applications.

For now the only thing more or less advanced is the data model, created using the Django ORM and Modelviz. We probably won’t use the ORM at all, but it helped to design the database without loosing too much time with poor database design tools. And it generates both the graph and the SQL!

Regarding the “card” technology in itself, it’s probably going to be RFID/NFC. Not because it’s hype, but because it’s cheap and the student card is a NFC anyway, so we’ll try to use it! And by the way, NFC is quite the same thing as RFID, it’s just that RFID designates a wider range of technologies than NFC. In case you are being confused, it’s just marketing, not technology.

Anyway, since I’m being evaluated on this project, I’m pretty sure I will finish it, or at least greatly advance it. So stay tuned to see how it turns out :)