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The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

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Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#121

Post by oblib »

monadic2 wrote: post #10
oblib wrote: post #6

I think the author's take on this is a bit heavy with hyperbole, but there's no doubt Iowa was a mess last night. My son was there working as volunteer, and so was his ex-girlfriend, who's still a close family friend. I was chatting with them both throughout the evening and into the wee hours this morning. They worked different locations in the Des Moines metro area and the results they reported to me were pretty clo…

I'm not sure what the db has to do with this, you need to structure the data somehow to be able to tally and breakdown results. SQL databases can certainly handle multiple magnitudes more transactions per second so it doesn't strike me as prima faciae bad decision making.

It's basically a "KISS" issue.

The data being submitted is so simple that using an SQL db adds a layer of unnecessary complexity.

So did their decisions for authentication, which appears to be where things got stuck.

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#122

Post by [deleted] »

wenbin wrote: post #110
war1025 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know whether I heard correctly or if the number was accurate, but I heard someone throw out $60k as the amount paid for the app development this morning on the radio. That sounds like a lot of money to a lay-person, but assuming $100/hr, which seems like at least a reasonable ballpark rate, that breaks down to 600 man-hours, or 15 man-weeks. That is a very tight deadline to turn out a critical app like this.…

The two founders of Instagram spent $65k (out of $500k they raised) to launch the very first version of Instagram in 2010 [1]. [1] https://lnns.co/8zhgtOF0YCo

[deleted]

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#123

Post by Kalium »

Benjammer wrote: post #112
nooron wrote: post #44

I started a company that was asked to write a proposal to make what became the app that failed last night. I declined because it was outside of our core skillset. You can read my prior comments or look at my profile to validate this. If you want my perspective as someone who started a Democratic software company, you should keep reading. This app emerged from a mandate to make the caucus more accessible and transpare…

Why is any sort of "Democratic software company" even remotely necessary? Why can't they pay for white-labeled solutions? Or pay an established consulting agency to build things?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22241577

You may find this discussion enlightening. In short, trust is at a premium and there are few white-label providers.

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#124

Post by jessaustin »

oblib wrote: post #6

I think the author's take on this is a bit heavy with hyperbole, but there's no doubt Iowa was a mess last night. My son was there working as volunteer, and so was his ex-girlfriend, who's still a close family friend. I was chatting with them both throughout the evening and into the wee hours this morning. They worked different locations in the Des Moines metro area and the results they reported to me were pretty clo…

I'm not sure that proposing alternate solutions is so enlightening. Even so, they could have just had the person in charge of each location post the results to twitter. Then they wouldn't have had to do any tabulation, because the public would have done the tabulation for them...

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#125

Post by zilian »

oblib wrote: post #121
monadic2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what the db has to do with this, you need to structure the data somehow to be able to tally and breakdown results. SQL databases can certainly handle multiple magnitudes more transactions per second so it doesn't strike me as prima faciae bad decision making.

It's basically a "KISS" issue. The data being submitted is so simple that using an SQL db adds a layer of unnecessary complexity. So did their decisions for authentication, which appears to be where things got stuck.

KISS but you suggest no sql ? Really ? Just use postgres

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#126

Post by jessaustin »

tptacek wrote: post #47
3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the relationship between the Iowa DNC and the “main” DNC?

There's no such thing as an "Iowa DNC". You presumably mean the IDP, the Iowa Democratic Party. They're separate organizations. The DNC and the state parties are often at odds with each other. There's a good series of "Reply All" episodes about this, focusing on the Alabama Democratic Party.

Since I heard those episodes I've been hoping that the Alabama situation isn't typical. Do you have any special insight about Iowa? Is there an Iowa kingmaker running everything from behind the scenes?

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#127

Post by 9935c101ab17a66 »

wenbin wrote: post #110
war1025 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know whether I heard correctly or if the number was accurate, but I heard someone throw out $60k as the amount paid for the app development this morning on the radio. That sounds like a lot of money to a lay-person, but assuming $100/hr, which seems like at least a reasonable ballpark rate, that breaks down to 600 man-hours, or 15 man-weeks. That is a very tight deadline to turn out a critical app like this.…

The two founders of Instagram spent $65k (out of $500k they raised) to launch the very first version of Instagram in 2010 [1]. [1] https://lnns.co/8zhgtOF0YCo

So what? What's your point?

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#128

Post by js2 »

pessimizer wrote: post #71
war1025 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know whether I heard correctly or if the number was accurate, but I heard someone throw out $60k as the amount paid for the app development this morning on the radio. That sounds like a lot of money to a lay-person, but assuming $100/hr, which seems like at least a reasonable ballpark rate, that breaks down to 600 man-hours, or 15 man-weeks. That is a very tight deadline to turn out a critical app like this.…

I think the plan was clearly that they would reuse the software for every caucus during this primary, so the $60K was one of a series of payments for the same product.

Only four states use caucuses (IA, NV, TX, CO).

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#129

Post by xnyan »

pastor_elm wrote: post #113
war1025 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know whether I heard correctly or if the number was accurate, but I heard someone throw out $60k as the amount paid for the app development this morning on the radio. That sounds like a lot of money to a lay-person, but assuming $100/hr, which seems like at least a reasonable ballpark rate, that breaks down to 600 man-hours, or 15 man-weeks. That is a very tight deadline to turn out a critical app like this.…

A simple RESTful mobile-friendly web page could have handled this easy. What were these people thinking?

Counterpoint, the primary use environment of the application will be on a smartphone. Web applications are not even second class citizens on iOS. In a situation where the user will be entering data all night, opening and closing and refreshing, variable internet connection quality and so on, all else being equal I would imagine the ideal platform would be a native application.

I lean towards agreeing with you that a simple website plus cheap laptop would the real world best case, but I can understand why you would want a native app.

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#130

Post by oblib »

mdavidn wrote: post #38
oblib wrote: post #6

I think the author's take on this is a bit heavy with hyperbole, but there's no doubt Iowa was a mess last night. My son was there working as volunteer, and so was his ex-girlfriend, who's still a close family friend. I was chatting with them both throughout the evening and into the wee hours this morning. They worked different locations in the Des Moines metro area and the results they reported to me were pretty clo…

Any database should work just fine for this application. 1678 precincts. 11 candidates. 2 rounds. That's 37 thousand records to fully represent everything.

With CouchDB you could have all that data in 1678 human readable files.

Or 1678 password protected databases with one or more human readable files in them and let CouchDB handle user auth, which CouchDB makes really easy.

You could do the same thing with a simple flat file database using directories and files and system level user access, and it'd be very fast too.

This is pretty much the kind of thing CouchDB is designed for though and has tools built-in to make it easy.

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