Every two weeks we look at one question. What shipped? Not what we talked about, not what is nearly there. What somebody uses today that they did not use two weeks ago.
This post explains how we answer that question and where the answer lives. We do not type a separate summary here that could drift from the record. The record is the changelog and the tracker on Atheron Progress, and this post tells you how to read them.
What shipped means
Each project on Atheron Progress is split into modules. Every module carries one of four marks: shipped, building, next or later.
Shipped has one meaning. Somebody uses it today. Not finished in a branch. Not shown once in a demo. In use.
The percentages you see on a project page are counted from those marks. Nobody types a number. When a module moves from building to shipped, the figure moves with it. When nothing moves, the figure stays where it was. We would rather show you a flat line than a number we made up.
Where the fortnight's record is
Two places. Both are computed from our repositories, not written by hand.
- The changelog. This is the list of what changed, in order. If a module was marked shipped in the last two weeks, it appears there.
- The tracker. This is the current state of every module in every project. It tells you where things stand now, so you can see the fortnight's changes in context.
If you want the roadmap, that is the third piece. It shows what is marked next and later, so you can see what we intend to do, kept separate from what we have done.
Project by project
We will not invent entries. Here is how to read each project for the fortnight.
Atheron Trading runs on paper only until launch. We publish no performance figures. A module marked shipped there means a piece of the system is in use on paper. It is not a performance claim and should not be read as one.
ATON Blockchain follows the same rules as everything else. Look at the module marks. Shipped means in use. Building means we are working on it now.
ATON Desk is marked coming soon. The tracker shows where each of its modules sits. If a module moves to shipped, the changelog records it. Until then, the honest answer is that it is coming.
Atheron Network Labs is open for projects. The same four marks apply.
Was anything down
Shipping is half the picture. The other half is whether what we shipped stayed up.
The status page shows each public service with ninety days of history. Each day is coloured by its worst event. One bad hour colours the whole day, so a green day means nothing went wrong, not that most of it was fine. Read the last fourteen days there alongside the changelog and you have the full fortnight: what arrived, and whether it held.
Why we do it this way
A progress report written by hand is a story. Stories drift. The person writing them rounds up, remembers the good parts and forgets the module that slipped from next to later.
A report computed from marks cannot do that. It can only show what the marks say. So the discipline is in the marks, not in the writing. Mark a module shipped only when somebody uses it. Let the numbers follow.
That is the whole method. Read the changelog for what moved. Read the tracker for where it stands. Read the status page for whether it stayed up. We will keep the three honest, and you can check them any time you like.