Up here in Canada, most of our dispatch services use google maps within the primary system as the base map layer with an option to launch our system on the software’s own cartography as backup but those maps are fairly out of date for the most part.

Beyond that, we have a provincially run platform that is actually even more up to date than Google Maps (and includes way more info, one good example is it gives us every single transformer and power pole across the province). That software gives us numerous base layer options, including Google Maps, satellite, and OpenStreenMaps. Most operators prefer the OSM base layer but having the option to switch rapidly to compare which is more detailed in a given area is so valuable.

I took an HTML elective in high school, and I think a Flash elective as well (might’ve been the same class, it’s a long time ago). And I took one python class in university, but that was all basic python (v1 or v2, can’t remember, I just know it for sure wasn’t v3).

Other than that, I’m self taught on everything I host/do. My professional field is emergency response (I’ve bounced around every specialty except security/policing) so very little IT exposure in my day to day work life.