[the-datatank] Status update on The DataTank

Tue Oct 9 09:22:33 UTC 2012

Dear datatank users and enthusiasts,

I'd like to give you a small update on what we're doing right now with The
DataTank and what changes we've put in it.

We have noticed that there was a dire need to reserve a place where
versions are annotated with what changes and fixes they contain. Since we
didn't have anything to start with, we have placed a file called "v1.2.0 -
Release notes" in the main folder that forms the base from which future
versions can refer too. The other versions ( v1.2.x ) are all combined in
the "release notes" file. This file contains per version what the important
changes are and is comparable to how PHP logs its changes (
http://php.net/ChangeLog-5.php ).

Next to that we have pushed the develop branch v1.2.1 to the master branch.
The master branch was vastly outdated, and this is partly due to not
knowing when we should bring out a new package of datatank features. In the
future we will focus more on improving the current code and 1-2 features,
testing it, and then releasing it under a different tag and/or version. The
way we used to do it was implementing a variety of features that seemed
necessary. This led to sometimes poor testing and thus poor user
experiences.

We know that this isn't the way to go and will work on it! More
communication on what features should be implemented and on what issues
users experience that we couldn't cover in our tests is key to make the
platform work!

To end this mail I'd like to give you guys a heads up on the latest project
The DataTank is involved in, namely http://data.gent.be/ . It contains
quite alot of datasets from the city of Ghent and are being opened with The
DataTank. Although it has its small child issues, it's a great step towards
open data!

Best regards,

Jan Vansteenlandt
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