The Hard Opening Made Easy

This work project for TriMet's new fare card web site always has me on my toes. Like I said, being so far down the chain of contractors, and being a thousand miles away from Portland, often crucial pieces of information don't make it to until the last minute.

For example, as of last week I thought I would all this week to clean up some of the remaining bug-fix tickets in the app before the live roll out to the public. On Monday I set out tackle some of the most intractable ones, thinking I could take the whole day to cover them.

Then at 5:30 PM, I got an email saying that the next day (that, today, Tuesday) would be the deadline for the release of the version that would go to the public. Moreover, I got a list of a high priority items. Could I possibly have them all done by the end of the next business day?

Of course I said yes. I get paid for that. Also I enjoy it. I love coming through for people. I am very good at making people look good at their own jobs. Even though pretty much the entire project came down to yours truly hacking at the keyboard to wrap up the bug fixes---something no one else could possibly do at this stage of the project---I know I will not get any formal public credit for any of this. I don't mind that, so long as the check clears. Money is not everything, but it's a good measure of the value one contributes at time. Moreover, I get the pride of completion of a job well down.

My key to success so far: I give a d@mn.

That being said, I'm still crossing my fingers nothing goes horribly wrong. Some things are beyond one's control. I can only do my job.

Fortunately all the last minute things they wanted me to do were very easy, so I got them done. They were things like changing the link of the instructional youtube videos to updated ones (like the one below). Sometimes people want the impossible and think it will be easy for you. Other times they want something easy and think it will be impossible. It seems to even out.

All of this recent hoopla and build-up had me deciding that I just had to join the party next Monday in Portland. So I'm flying up to Oregon this weekend, visiting for the first time since we left there eleven months ago.  I'll get to drop by and see my mates at the Brigade in Albina, and also join them at the kickoff party in downtown Portland on Monday morning.

You're invited too. See you there!

Hop launch media event

When	Mon Jul 17, 2017 10am – 11am
Where	SW 11th and Morrison, Portland - TriMet's 11th Ave rail turnaround

So that was the Soft Opening

As a contractor of a contractor of a contractor of a contractor (I discovered there was an additonal layer in the last few days), much of the work I do on this TriMet fare card project has been on a need-to-know basis. Many important pieces of information about the project never make it to me. I'm perfectly happy with things being that way, by the way. Most of that stuff, I don't want to know about, but in some cases it does help me with job.

For example, I learned on Thursday that the Wednesday launch of the Hop card system was in fact the official launch, but it was a "soft launch," meaning that it is indeed up and running for the public, but the launch was without any publicity by TriMet. This is actually a very smart thing to do, in case something goes horribly wrong, or the deployment has to be rolled back. It hasn't needed that kind of thing so far. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

I learned moreover that the public launch of Hop card, with all the hoopla that TriMet can muster, will be on the 17th of July, a week from Monday.

I just got an email invite to the official launch party at the TriMet headquarters, and I am thinking strongly of going. My collaborators at the design firm, who originally hired me, are also having their own party with other folks involved. I haven't seen them in almost a year, so it will fun to drop by the offices in Albina while I am in town.

Think of Me When You Ride TriMet

Today was a nice day for me professionally, one I'll remember for a long time.

This is because today TriMet, the transit agency of Portland, officially launched Hop card, its new tap-and-ride fare card system. The Hop card a "smart" system. One basically buys a card from a local retailer, loads it with money using a credit or debit card, and then taps it each time one gets on or off one of the three transit systems of the greater Portland area (TriMet itself, the Portland Streetcar system, and the bus system of Vancouver, Washington).

The name "Hop card" is meant to refer both to the idea of "hopping on the bus" but also obliquely to the hops used in the brewing of beer, because of the local microbrewery industry.

The "smart" part about the Hop card system is that it has fare caps. If you use your card once to buy a fare, then you effectively have a pass for the rest of the day, and no more money will be deducted if you use the card again. It also works that way for capping on a week and month basis too.

The whole system has a web interface, for managing cards, both on an individual level, and also on the corporate level for passes given out to employees.

Originally, when this project started a couple years ago, TriMet wanted a system like the one they have in London (the Oyster Card). They hired a German database company that specializes in transit systems to create the tap-and-go card system, and install the tap readers in the train stations and buses.

But Portland being Portland, TriMet told the German database company that as part of deal, they would need to subcontract the design the card management website to a local Portland company, which could build one that had the right "Portland look-and-feel" and the expected Portland-level digital user experience (what we in the trade call UI/UX). Anyone familiar with the design industry in Portland would understand what they mean.

So for the website the German database company hired a local Portland firm, and they began building this "front-end" website so people and companies could manage their cards online.

This local Portland design firm is one that, like most design firms, specializes in graphics. They know how to "brand" web sites, and make them look cool. For example, they recently made a site for Spotify, and they go to SXSW each year to soak up the hottest digital trends.

But they didn't have expertise in building web applications---doing the code work that makes complex sites actually do their thing,  They had one developer, but they needed a second one to keep up with the work. So they hired me, in the Spring of 2016, back when I lived on East Burnside. I've been working on this over a year now.

It's been very rewarding, and I've gotten to meet and work with a lot of great people, at TriMet, at the German database company, and at the Portland design firm. All of this while on many days I don't even leave the grounds of our house up here above Scottsdale.

In the last few months, the beta testing of the consumer site went very well. I perused the reactions on the Portland Reddit, and most reactions were very positive. Throughout last week I was in last minute bug fix mode, doing little changes all over the app, and committing them to the code repository on GitHub.

One of the last changes I had to make was to tweak the Google maps that lets you find a retailer for the Hop card. I had to change autocomplete of the address you enter so when you started typing "Vancouver" it would return results for Vancouver, Washington (just across the river) instead of being swamped with results from the city in British Columbia.

I hadn't ever used this part of Google Maps API before (that part of the app had been built by someone else, but he was gone). It was fun looking up how to make that change and tweak a parameter so the search worked the way they wanted.

On Friday we wrapped up the last "sprint" (a term for a short development cycle comprising specific goals). All through the morning, I kept giving them new releases of the software, even hourly, as we found the last few bugs of the day.

The last couple hours on Friday were calm, and then the messages from them stopped entirely. I took that as a good sign. They were satisfied. Moreover, we actually met the project deadline in a very graceful way, without any last minute crises.

Today my colleague at the design firm in Portland informed me (via our Slack channel) hat Hop Card has been launched.

So far no frantic emails from TriMet. Things seem to humming alone.

You want to try it out. Here it is.  I've been staring at that interface for a long time. I didn't do any of the stuff that looks pretty. All of my stuff is in the way the application works, handing the data and doing it's application tasks. Like I said, a very rewarding experience.

And wow, there's already a Wikipedia article about Hop card.