This page lists the differences between version 4 of Plane/Sailing, with a Java-based server, and version 5, which rewrote the backend code in Python. My intention is to keep the main build guide up-to-date with the latest state of the system, as this will be of most interest to readers, while maintaining pages like this one to explain what’s changed for returning visitors.

Plane/Sailing v5.0

After a couple of years of writing only Python and JS projects in my spare time, and a couple of emails from users struggling to get the Java dependencies and compilation going, I decided to rewrite the back-end of Plane/Sailing in Python.

This also allowed me to take advantage of the slightly better features of the third-party libraries for decoding ADS-B, AIS and APRS on the Python platform. Being a more common choice for hobby developers does seem to mean that the library ecosystem is a little better for this kind of stuff.

Aside from a couple of layout tweaks, the user-facing front end didn’t change between Plane/Sailing 4 and 5, and functionality shouldn’t be impacted.

The README has of course been fully updated with the new set of instructions to get the system up and running.