[iRail] My 2 cents ideas to improve the API

[Yeri Tiete]

On 06 Aug 2010, at 12:56, Pieter Colpaert wrote:

> On Fri, 2010-08-06 at 12:40 +0200, Yeri Tiete wrote:
>> Good morning,
>> 
>> 
>> o About Google Analytics. I run it too for iRail. Can add your gmail
>> account if you like. Feel free to add me, tuinslak at gmail.com.
>> 
>> 
>> o I'll get the Android SDK and check our your app next week as well. 
>> 
>> 
>> o About the GPS locs, useless, but fun. Here's an Excel sheet with the
>> GPS locs of all Belgian train stations, if
>> interested; http://github.com/Tuinslak/iRail/blob/master/docs/stations/PTCAR-GPS.xls
>> 
> 
> Can I please never hear the word useless again? ;-)
> Opendata law: you can never imagine what people are going to do with you
> service/data.
> 
> I actually have a pretty good use for it: when someone writes a GPS
> route planner, he will be able to get the GPS coordinates of the closest
> station, route to it with Dijkstra algorithm, and then say you should
> take a train instead of going by car.
> 
> Second remark: it would be hypocritical to strive for open data if we do
> not respect open standard. Would it be possible to convert the xls to a
> open standard? (plain text, open office, csv, pdf, ...)
> 

Was talking about train GPS locs. :) Unless your making something fun in google maps with all the trains moving around, I, myself, haven't found another use of it, yet. But of course, as stated, I think we should provide a maximum of info/APIs/... and let devvers and end users do with it whatever they please. ;)

Committed pdf and csv file now as well. The xls file was provided to me like that, and I just committed it without paying a lot of attention to it. :P 

> 
>> o Guess we'll have to come up with priority lists and focus on certain
>> parts first. All of these features should be implementable, especially
>> through an API. I'd say not all these features are useful for the
>> web/mobile version of iRail (like GPS position of trains etc), but if
>> we're 'bundling' everything and provide an API for it through iRail
>> (in case someone wants to do something cool with it), then sure, let's
>> do it. And document all our APIs correctly (unlike the SNCB).
> 
> What do you suggest? Should we set up a trac website? AFAIK it's the
> best tool for managing priorities like these.
> 
> http://trac.edgewall.org/

Sure, after the weekend !

> 
> Pieter
> 
> 
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