"By the people, for the people"
- By: DNAHeritage
- On: 07/04/2010 23:04:08
- In: General
Today, we're embarking on something slightly different and experimental. Ybase is being razed to the ground. But a new shinier Ybase will be built in its place.
More specifically, we are moving it over to PHP and MySQL. For the uninitiated, these are a programming language and a database, respectively. What this means is that we have to rewrite the entire site, and with this comes an opportunity.
We have lots of publicly-contributed and publicly-accessible data, but a lot more can be added to it, and a lot more can be done with it. We'd like to make it far more useful to people using the site and linking in to it. Or rather help you do it.More specifically, we are moving it over to PHP and MySQL. For the uninitiated, these are a programming language and a database, respectively. What this means is that we have to rewrite the entire site, and with this comes an opportunity.
The main thrust will be presentation, standardization and the creation of an API. We'll also tie-in comprehensive SNP marker information and provide tools for data-mining so that we can better understand how names, haplotypes and haplogroups are grouped.
We need your suggestions and comments. What's missing, and more importantly, how should it be fixed? You can join the discussion at http://www.ybase.org/newsite.asp
Call out to programmers and coders. Adept at PHP? Know your way around a database? Tinker with jQuery? RESTful? Like to analyze and present data? We can't do this without you. We'll remove passwords and email addresses, but otherwise we'll present you with the entire database to play with. You are starting with a clean slate and a clean server to play with.
We're creating a small community of developers that can use the information to its fullest. We'll help to provide a collaborative environment where you can run ideas past other developers, and use comments from the genetic genealogy community and run with them. Your 'lab' will be open for other developers to walk in and out of and see your code, and you can post ideas and work openly for the broader public to comment and suggest upon. Email us at info@dnaheritage.com and tell us a bit about yourself
To keep people abreast of developments, we've created a Twitter account as we hope that updates will come fast and furious, or at least at a respectable pace. From time to time we'll place special offers on it, but the main purpose is to show what developments are taking place.
