CartoDB is a web mapping platform based on PostGIS and Mapnik.

I've started looking at it on February 2012 as part of my new adventure at Vizzuality, the company behind the service.

The CartoDB platform is composed by 3 main components:

I've been maintaining the node.js APIs for a couple of years while trying to survive the sharp edges of the rails application.

My mission has been, during my time in the team, to open up the development model of the software components. I did my best to improve the ease of setting up a local development instance, of ensuring no regressions were introduced by changes, of learning about internals, of being aware about the roadmap, of understanding development rationale, of contributing effectively. I cannot say to have succeeded all the way to my goal, but at the time of my end of contract (October 2014) all components have a NEWS file, a GNU-like configuration and build facility (enough to allow for a unified installer), an automatically triggered regression testsuite.

Unfortunately, I could not help in taking the decision making process out in the open. As of October 2014 how decisions about the CartoDB software suite are taken is still a mystery even to me.

Accomplishments

Beside general maintainance and the aforementioned general improvements to the stability and accountability of changes, notable improvements I've been working on include: