[dash-dev] Dashboard architecture

[Bjorn Freeman-Benson <bjorn.freeman-benson@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ward and I have been working on the Commits Explorer (http://dash.eclipse.org/dash/commits/). The basic architecture of this dashboard is in three parts:

• A database summarizing all commits to all the Eclipse CVS repositories
• A web API to run specific queries against this database (e.g. http://dash.eclipse.org//dash/commits/commit-summary.php?top=y&year=x)
• A web front end to take the API results and massage/format/navigate them in interesting ways (e.g. http://dash.eclipse.org/dash/commits/summary.cgi)

We plan to build the same sort of structure for the old dashboard data: newsgroups, mailing lists, bugzilla, etc. The combination of the web API and the web front end allows other front ends to use the same raw data. And the other front ends can run on other non-Eclipse machines.

What do you all think? Is this a reasonable approach?

- Bjorn