BudgetAus Soft Launch!

I've been learning PHP since my son's last birthday- June 18 so I was surprised to realise that in a fortnight that will make it 3 months since I began reading my first PHP text book Learning PHP, MySQL and Javascript! I also started JavaScript as per the text book instructions somewhere along the way. While I finished the book some time ago, I can't quite say that I took on board all it had to offer beginning as it did with PHP data types and ending with AJAX httpRequests.

However, I have managed to produce BudgetAus my first major project, inspired by The Open Budget which was produced during the 2012 GovHack event earlier this year. Given that I was learning to create and script for MySQL databases, I required the use of data which was extensive enough to warrant the use of a database so I went nosing around the internet looking for data that I could use without getting into mischief (technical or otherwise).

As it turns out I seem to be learning to code at a time where the Australian government is beginning to come to the party with open sourcing it's data which is very fortuitous for me because I like dealing with good data. At this point it is worth mentioning that the Australian Capital Territory government has just launched it's beta site DataACT which everyone in the world of open data is quite excited about.

While I really liked The Open Budget app, the data was not in any way complete and there were lots of things I wanted to get from the data which I could not using their interface. I also noticed that other people who visited it were equally engaged as I was by wanting to know more about our budget.

This began what has become a very intimate relationship of mine with the finances of The Australian Commonwealth. I have added several additional Portfolios to the existing data set, added Program numbers and Objectives where none were given and basically gone over the Program totals in each Portfolio Budget Statement with a fine toothed comb (or at least a tired but dogged determination!).