[Am-info] Re: Dutch Railways web site cockup.

[Marcus de Geus]

After the recent "upgrade" of the Dutch Railways (NS) web site rendered it =
effectively inaccessible to any browser other than MSIE, I thought of writi=
ng a pure HTML front end and a filter that would tap into the database engi=
ne on the NS web server. The front end would be used to feed trip parameter=
s to the database engine and would be accessible to any type of browser pas=
t, present, and future. Likewise, the filter would render the data returned=
 by the server readily digestible by any browser.

My problem was where to start, since I do not even have a M$ system at hand=
 to find out the input data required by the database engine (on top of that=
, I wouldn't know where to begin programming the thing, but like other web =
designers and software developers, I won't let a simple lack of knowledge s=
tand in the way of progress). As it was, I did not have to worry for long, =
since I wasn't the only one to have this idea:

<http://www.spoorboekje.nl>

Non-Dutch speakers note that "spoorboekje" means "train table" (one that es=
caped the clutches of site4sale c.s.). Another amusing detail: the makers o=
f the site have dubbed the search program "planner++" (the Dutch Railways s=
ervice is called Planner Plus).

Regards,

Marcus de Geus
--
marcus@degeus.com
http://www.degeus.com