MassDOT/MBTA Developers Meeting Tuesday, May 7

[Developer at MBTA]

Dear developers, 

It's been some time since we had a MassDOT/MBTA Developer's Meeting, and a lot's happened: we've introduced new signs and new and updated feeds, you've written over 50 apps, and now we have something brand new we want to alert you to. So please come to catch up on the latest changes, tell us what you're looking for from us, and get a sneak peek at what's next. 

The meeting will be Tuesday May 7th at 6pm at 10 Park Plaza, Boston. When you reach 10 Park Plaza head up the escalator to reach the 2nd floor conference rooms. 

This event is free tickets are not required, but you can help us plan by letting us know you're coming by emailing or using eventbrite: 

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/6475569603

Looking forward to seeing you! 

Sincerely,

Developer at MBTA

[Developer at MBTA]

Just a reminder about Tuesday's meeting at 6pm at 10 Park Plaza, Boston. We want to tell you what's down the road and alert you to something new. So please come to catch up on the latest changes, tell us what you're looking for from us, and get a sneak peek at what's next.

This event is free tickets are not required, but you can help us plan by letting us know you're coming by emailing or using eventbrite:

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/6475569603

Sincerely,
Developer at MBTA

[Mark & Karren Vantzelfde]

FYI, the eventbrite time shows 6:00pm PDT so the add to calendar ends up at the wrong time.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MBTA Developers" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to massdotdevelop...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to massdotd...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/massdotdevelopers?hl=en.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
 
 

[Mark & Karren Vantzelfde]

This is a webinar session too?

On Thu, May 2, 2013 at 2:15 PM, Developer at MBTA <deve...@mbta.com> wrote:

--

[Developer at MBTA]

Thank you for catching that, we've corrected it on the eventbrite. The meeting will be at 6:00pm eastern daylight time. 

Sincerely,

Developer at MBTA

[Developer at MBTA]

Reminder, the MassDOT/MBTA Developers Meeting is this evening at 6! We're in 10 Park Plaza, the State Transportation Building, on the 2nd floor in conference room 5. See you there!

Sincerely,

Developer at MBTA

[James Synge]

Thanks very much for holding the meeting last night. I commend you for sharing the data that enables us to create apps for users.

We discussed open source and bug lists; I encourage consideration of the latter.  For example, you could create a code.google.com project with only an issue list, which would allow external developers to not only report problems, but to see bugs that you choose to add, and to discuss work arounds, and to be notified when their status is updated.

James Synge

--

[Andy Monat]

I agree with James that an openly available bug list would be a great idea.

(I know as a Google employee James is obligated to suggest Google Code as a place to host the bug list, but I'd say that way more developers are using GitHub at this point.)

[Daniel Choi]

Hi -- I wanted to make the meeting but couldn't because of deadlines.

Will the MBTA post an announcement on the MBTA developer webpage of the new API changes?

Thank you for all your hard work.

Dan


On Wed, May 08, 2013 at 09:06 AM, James Synge <james...@gmail.com> wrote:

> from: James Synge <james...@gmail.com>
> date: Wed, May 08 09:06 AM -04:00 2013
> to: massdotd...@googlegroups.com
> reply-to: massdotd...@googlegroups.com
> subject: Re: MassDOT/MBTA Developers Meeting Tuesday, May 7

>
> Thanks very much for holding the meeting last night. I commend you for
> sharing the data that enables us to create apps for users.
>
> We discussed open source and bug lists; I encourage consideration of the
> latter. For example, you could create a code.google.com project with only
> an issue list, which would allow external developers to not only report
> problems, but to see bugs that you choose to add, and to discuss work
> arounds, and to be notified when their status is updated.
>
> James Synge
> On May 7, 2013 10:18 AM, "Developer at MBTA" <deve...@mbta.com> wrote:
>
> Reminder, the MassDOT/MBTA Developers Meeting is this evening at 6! We're
> in 10 Park Plaza, the State Transportation Building, on the 2nd floor in
> conference room 5. See you there!
>
> Sincerely,
> Developer at MBTA
>
>
> On Thursday, May 2, 2013 2:15:40 PM UTC-4, Developer at MBTA wrote:
>>
>> Just a reminder about Tuesday's meeting at 6pm at 10 Park Plaza, Boston.
>> We want to tell you what's down the road and alert you to something new. So
>> please come to catch up on the latest changes, tell us what you're looking
>> for from us, and get a sneak peek at what's next.
>>
>> This event is free tickets are not required, but you can help us plan by
>> letting us know you're coming by emailing or using eventbrite:
>>

>> http://www.eventbrite.com/**event/6475569603<http://www.eventbrite.com/event/6475569603>

>> Sincerely,
>> Developer at MBTA
>>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "MBTA Developers" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to massdotdevelop...@googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to massdotd...@googlegroups.com.
> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/massdotdevelopers?hl=en.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MBTA Developers" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to massdotdevelop...@googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to massdotd...@googlegroups.com.
> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/massdotdevelopers?hl=en.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.

---
Sent from Vmail
http://danielchoi.com/software/vmail.html

[Developer at MBTA]

Thanks James. It's definitely something we'll consider for the future. 

Sincerely, 

Developer at MBTA

[Developer at MBTA]

Dan, 

Sorry you couldn't make the meeting. Yes, we will absolutely post information to this space when it's ready. 

Sincerely,

Developer at MBTA

[James Synge]

On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 2:01 PM, Andy Monat <amo...@gmail.com> wrote:

I agree with James that an openly available bug list would be a great idea.

(I know as a Google employee James is obligated to suggest Google Code as a place to host the bug list, but I'd say that way more developers are using GitHub at this point.)

I'm sure that was in jest, but to be serious, I agree with Andy that GitHub offers a very popular service, and I personally think it would be fine choice.  I'd especially like to see us (programmers using the MBTA data) have a way of sharing non-proprietary code (i.e. apps have lots of infrastructure that isn't the key value, just stuff you have to do on any MBTA or GTFS app), and GitHub offers a good means to do so.

In addition to sharing info (to/from MBTA) about bugs/issues/releases, and sharing code between developers, it would be be nice to have a way of sharing databases.  I know some of us have collected the real time vehicle location data over long periods (I've not checked on my server lately, but it should have a year accumulated by now), but don't have good ways to share it.  Any thoughts?

My goals for such data include being able to provide more accurate path info for each route, i.e. where does the bus actually go, as opposed to where does the hand drawn, low resolution path data say it goes.  From inspection of the data I've collected, its apparent we could improve the paths, and make it available to all of our apps; the MBTA could decide whether it was worth using to update their master paths.  Similarly, I've found that the stop locations aren't very accurate (one near my house is over 200 feet away from the actual location).

[George Schneeloch]

Both open source code and public bug trackers have a support burden which might be nontrivial for an organization as large and complex as the MBTA, because there is an expectation that a product is designed to allow for community involvement. It needs to be documented and bugs need to be tracked and handled within a reasonable timeframe. Even opening their data to us has its cost in documentation and communication, and they need to vet their data and APIs more carefully than they probably would if it was all relatively closed.

I'm pretty happy with the MBTA's open data myself and I think that was worth the cost. Hopefully other projects are worth their time to open but I would understand if they don't.
-George