1. In this post I'd like to give you some background on U2start as software. An application which has to be maintained in a period of time where usage increases every day and new features or changes are being thought of, designed and implemented almost every week. A glimpse behind the scenes and an introduction to some of our latest new features.

    U2start as a software application
    U2start is an ever-evolving community, where our website is at the core of what we are and do. Technically speaking, the website has grown a bit out of hand the past few years, where our "codebase" (programming code) has become bigger than many other projects or websites, even commercial ones.

    U2start has two programmers (me & Chris/Risto) working on the site, two people who can fix bugs (things that don't work as expected), make changes or implement new features. We work with a roadmap (a list of things we'd like to focus on for the short- and long-term, inspired by our users, suggested by the crew or things that just need to happen) and then start to think on how we want these features to work. Usually some sketching and documentation goes along with it, before actual development starts.

    Rough notes written in October 2014 on ideas for changes to the site with the upcoming tour in mind, translated into code in the center of the image and released to U2start.com in Q1 2015. The current version of U2start is 7.1 with 9748 files and 61805 lines of code.

    Development takes place on our own computers, where we can test stuff and mess around without impact to the real users. When we are satisfied with how things work on our computer we move our changes to our testing environment. This is a copy of the U2start website but then with test data, with the sole purpose of (public) testing. For big changes or a big release we also invite others to this test environment to make sure that what we do works and really solves a problem or meets a need.

    When that stage has passed as well its time to update the "production" environment on U2start.com. This is when everyone can see and test changes. Most are not visible since they either take place in the "back-end" (such as performance improvements) or on the management/crew pages, which is where the U2start crew updates its content. At that point our translation system also makes sure to notify our translation team to translate any new word or phrase added to the site, to make sure our content is available in as many languages as possible.

    Development during a period of intense U2 activity
    Ever since the tour started, development activity has increased significantly, to the point where we almost every two days make a new release of the website. Our list of things to do is only getting bigger as we think of stuff we can offer or need to improve. Every few weeks me and Chris come together for half a day to do something we call "pair programming". First, we pick an idea from the roadmap, then sketch out how we want something to work, and then we both work on a part of it before we merge it together. The goal is to have something ready to be released after half a day, which we can later further iterate on.

    Some of our latest changes and improvements
    The short break between the two legs is a good time for us to improve some things on the site and to work on ideas we've had in mind which could improve the U2 fan experience looking at the remainder of the tour. We've recently released some of this work, some highlights:

    * A new review section. A great way to discover new & old shows, plus the 10 highest rated per tour.

    * An overview page of all tickets fans have for sale or to trade. Currently almost 70 tickets for the European leg.

    * A tapers section, highlighting work from amazing people who dedicate their shows to recording them.

    * Lots of improvements to our photo section, where the frontpage allows you through browse through the latest sets, the browse and search page allows you to filter on image size, era, aspect ratio and more and whereas the photo page allows you to download and view 3 to 4 different sizes of an image and photographers can leave their website URL so we can link back to them when they submit amazing photos to us.

    What else is on the roadmap?
    The next few things we will work on in the coming months are:
    * Improving our show catalogue even further, with more filters and grouping options. So you can always find what you're looking for.
    * Initiating and completing the merge of AchtungBootlegs.com into our show catalogue.
    * Improving your personal user profile and make profiles more visible on the site.

    Ideas? Suggestions? Feedback? Always welcome, we'd be happy to hear it!