Shout out to Trimet in Portland, Oregon. I think their map is pretty great:
Live Map of the London Underground
81–90 of 117 posts
Re: Live Map of the London Underground
#82https://ben-james.notion.site/tube-data > You will regret using this data. You will regret using this API. > It serves data from individual arrivals boards, which all spell stations differently. > It describes train status in free text that varies between stations. “Approaching Barnet”, “Near Waterloo”, “Heading to Bank”, “Departing Southgate”, “Leaving Hampstead”, etc. I'm not sure what you expected from an organisa…
FunFact: I have enjoyed HN for about 10 years even though I have NO IDEA what an API etc. is. A tribute to its welcoming big tent for non-techies like me who wouldn't know a dark pattern from dark matter.
An Application Programming Interface provides data to a requester. They are built/shaped by the provider and so the provider usually has documentation for a user to know how to pull and parse it, with example snippets.
Its like having a printer with preset documents it can print. You set it on your desk, and others can click a button to have the chosen preset sheet come out. You can get creative by hiding some buttons, making some buttons also require a fingerprint of the user to print the paper, or the printout changes every minute, etc.
But the API printer sits on someone's server and prints objects, or organized data, and sends it to whatever you used to call, or request, from the API.
Re: Live Map of the London Underground
#83https://ben-james.notion.site/tube-data > You will regret using this data. You will regret using this API. > It serves data from individual arrivals boards, which all spell stations differently. > It describes train status in free text that varies between stations. “Approaching Barnet”, “Near Waterloo”, “Heading to Bank”, “Departing Southgate”, “Leaving Hampstead”, etc. I'm not sure what you expected from an organisa…
FunFact: I have enjoyed HN for about 10 years even though I have NO IDEA what an API etc. is. A tribute to its welcoming big tent for non-techies like me who wouldn't know a dark pattern from dark matter.
I'll try and explain it simply with no technical information.
An API, or Application Programming Interface, allows you to interact with software using pre-defined agreements, or contracts.
Think of API as a set of legal contracts. I use this analogy when explaining it to lawyers.
If I give you $5, and I say give me an Apple, you will give me an Apple, as expected by the predefined contract, that I receive an Apple.
If I end up receiving Broccoli, then what we have here, is a bug. Or, in other words, the contract has been broken.
Now apply this to other domains in commerce - e.g. I give an ID of an item in a store, and I get back the name of the item, it's price, and if it's stock.
Re: Live Map of the London Underground
#84It's cool to see how fast the trains go on different lines. But... where's the Elizabeth line? You get the tooltip when you hover over it, but the polyline is missing.
Waterloo&City seems to be missing too
I think it's present on the map, but is transparent or invisible in some way.
You can find it if you hover north-east of Waterloo.
Re: Live Map of the London Underground
#85The Austrian version of this is particularly cool because it has all forms of public transport on it: https://anachb.vor.at/ (click Kartenoptionen -> Live map -> alle einblenden).
I noticed Yandex maps for St. Petersburg has this as well. Always wanted it in the US.
Re: Live Map of the London Underground
#86https://ben-james.notion.site/tube-data > You will regret using this data. You will regret using this API. > It serves data from individual arrivals boards, which all spell stations differently. > It describes train status in free text that varies between stations. “Approaching Barnet”, “Near Waterloo”, “Heading to Bank”, “Departing Southgate”, “Leaving Hampstead”, etc. I'm not sure what you expected from an organisa…
FunFact: I have enjoyed HN for about 10 years even though I have NO IDEA what an API etc. is. A tribute to its welcoming big tent for non-techies like me who wouldn't know a dark pattern from dark matter.
It's like a website but for code instead of people.
People use web browsers to hit websites, but when code hits URLs they are typically just called APIs. A website is technically an API too
Re: Live Map of the London Underground
#87I've seen visualisations similar to this before, but this one is by far the most beautiful and I could watch it all day. I echo the sentiments on the TfL API, I've built the same Tube Tracker app over and over for more than 10 years[1] as my go-to for learning new tools[2] or testing changes to frameworks[3] and I'm not sure it's ever improved. A chap called Chris Applegate wrote extensively about his battles more th…
Also this one https://minitokyo3d.com/
But its after the last trains now so not much to see.
Re: Live Map of the London Underground
#88https://ben-james.notion.site/tube-data > You will regret using this data. You will regret using this API. > It serves data from individual arrivals boards, which all spell stations differently. > It describes train status in free text that varies between stations. “Approaching Barnet”, “Near Waterloo”, “Heading to Bank”, “Departing Southgate”, “Leaving Hampstead”, etc. I'm not sure what you expected from an organisa…
FunFact: I have enjoyed HN for about 10 years even though I have NO IDEA what an API etc. is. A tribute to its welcoming big tent for non-techies like me who wouldn't know a dark pattern from dark matter.
To the gloriously mansplaining sibling commenters: Do you really think a question has been asked in the parent comment? If you do, why?
Re: Live Map of the London Underground
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
FunFact: I have enjoyed HN for about 10 years even though I have NO IDEA what an API etc. is. A tribute to its welcoming big tent for non-techies like me who wouldn't know a dark pattern from dark matter.
To the gloriously mansplaining sibling commenters: Do you really think a question has been asked in the parent comment? If you do, why?
This made me smile.
Re: Live Map of the London Underground
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
FunFact: I have enjoyed HN for about 10 years even though I have NO IDEA what an API etc. is. A tribute to its welcoming big tent for non-techies like me who wouldn't know a dark pattern from dark matter.
To the gloriously mansplaining sibling commenters: Do you really think a question has been asked in the parent comment? If you do, why?
What’s the harm? Parent can choose to not read if they want.