I’ve nearly completely rewritten the JavaScript for pulling the data, storing it, and generating the geometry for the website. The goal was to reduce the memory and CPU usage of the website (which is probably more impactful on mobile devices and tablets). I’ve also finally ditched KML data files for the geometry base and moved to GeoJSON. The benefit – reduced memory usage!
The old website would start by using about 300-350MB of memory after the initial load, and increase from there. Each map change would add to the memory used (this is known as a memory leak).
The new website starts the same – around 300-350MB of memory, but once the data is stored on disk (instead of in memory) and garbage collection runs in the background, the memory usage decreases and stays between 150-200MB. Even as maps types change and different tabs are used, Chrome indicated that memory usage was still between 150-200MB.
The other update for this month is a small tweak to ownership data – I’m a little more particular about how I go about assigning subsidiaries to the major carriers to try and make sure that they own a controlling fraction ( >= 50%) of the subsidiary before I assign it to them. There are some small cell phone companies out there that have a major carrier (Verizon) that owns a small fraction of the company (10%). But those shouldn’t be assigned to Verizon.
The next few changes are more behind the scenes. Hopefully some more user-facing changes this summer.
If you happen to notice any problems with the new system, please let me know here.