Find the next departing train for a particular stop on the MBTA T network.
As an MBTA rider, I would like to know when the next train is going to depart from a specific stop so that I know when I should plan to get to the boarding area. Instructions
Write a program in a language of your choice (we prefer Python or Angular) that interacts with the MBTA public API (https://api-v3.mbta.com) to achieve the following acceptance criteria:
- Your program should prompt users to select from a list of routes that service only Light and Heavy Rail trains.
- Your program should display a listing of stops related to the selected route and prompt the user to select a stop
- Your program should display a list of route directions and prompt the user to select a direction
- Your program should display the next predicted departure time for a train based on the previously selected inputs
Your code submission will be evaluated on function, code structure, performance, readability, testability and supplied automated tests. If there are any package dependencies or special install instructions, please make sure to include those with your submission.
to be complete within 48 hours
This was my first time using Django. Apologies that it is not fully utilized and
some of the things are likely out of place. I am sure there are also ways to incorporate NPM
to acquire and manage frontend libraries that would greatly improve the UI; went with standard
CSS (minimally would want a Sass or Less compiler) and jQuery. The initial setup of Django and
working with the obfuscatation of manage.py and setting up the repo for presentation was
more of an issue than the actual exercise. Not to mention that the MBTA API has a few issues:
when requesting stops you are able to include the related route, however, this is only when
filtering with a single route (not a list). So, that required a significant refactor and addition
of paths, functions, and additional ajax call from the frontend.
Anyway ... to use:
cd [path-to-repo]/django
make
make run
* In your favorite browser go to `http://localhost:8000/mbta`
Running tests:
cd [path-to-repo]/django
make
make test
* Coverage report generated to [path-to-repo]/django/htmlcov
This was an interesting exercise touching on many aspects of software development. I certainly learned things. I hope to extend this same exercise to other frameworks.