Experience: Hit The Road

Hit The Road (development link is a startup that was developed at the inaugural Dublin Startup Weekend. A team of five developers and three businessmen banded together with a sole purpose: to make navigating Dublin's public transport system simple.

I knew two members of the development team prior to the event, but the other five members were strangers to me when we first formed around the idea on the evening of Friday the 8th May 2010. An initial plan was put together to develop this idea over the next two days (a stratup weekend is a 54 hour event aimed at quickly developing an idea). We noted potential problems, such as data on public transport routes, and chose a development platform: Ruby On Rails. By Saturday morning we had a solid plan and a start on the development and by Saturday evening a prototype user interface and some small data sets for the DART, Luas, and a handful of Dublin Bus Routes.

On Sunday morning, we had a working prototype. The prototype was slow, and due to not having all the data often gave vircuitous routes, but it was working. By the end of the event we pitched our idea to a room of attendees and judges.

I have found this experience to be invaluable, it has taught me how much work can be achieved in a short amount of time when a time comes together for a sole purpose. The skill set of each team member was unique, not all the members knew Ruby (including yours truly), or used a version control system for code, but each team member played to their own skills and helped the other team members when out of their depth. I also learned how important a simple version control system (in this case Mercurial) aids with rapid development. It allowed each team member to work independently on different aspects of the project and then quickly integrate all this work together whenever a test was being performed.