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Phase 2

Phase 1: Integrate MDN data

  • Timeline: April–May 2013
  • Status: in progress, partial completion

This second phase of automated data compatibility tables is to integrate the data from Mozilla Developer Network (MDN).

MDN does not have a test-based methodology for its compatibility tables, which are reported manually by their contributors, but it does have wide coverage and a meaningful granularity of features. We can use these results as a stop-gap measure to fill in information where other data sources don’t supply information. These non-test-based results will bear an indicator that they are not verified, and we will provide a way to allow contributors to submit tests and results for verification.

This data will be obtained from MDN only a single time, since it is temporary.

Methodology

  1. Obtain permission from Mozilla to reuse this data (done)

  2. Identify a list of pages to copy the data from

  3. Create a script to access and save the compatibility data from each page via the MDN API (partially done)

  4. Run the script on a low-traffic day and time, to decrease the impact on MDN

  5. Convert the data into JSON format

  6. Upload the data file to a dedicated data directory: /docs/compat/mdn/data.json

  7. Develop a merge script to integrate the MDN data with other sources, preferentially selecting the other sources where they contain test-backed data

    • Indicate in the JSON schema which results are test-driven and which are not
  8. Output markup to allow us to style non-test-driven data, and prompt users to contribute test (long-term)

Results

The results will be a table showing the compatibility tables for the feature indicated in the feature attribute; for example, the CSS property border-radius: <compatability topic="css" type="property" feature="border-radius">test</compatability>