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The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

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Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#141

Post by wisty »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #123

This is definitely hacker-bait. Cue up all the folks complaining about wasteful government, then cue up the hotshot programmer folks who will tell us they can code this in 2 hours while drunk, then cue up the FOIA folks, then the folks who feel any critique at all of government is indicative of right-wing extremism, and so on. I remember when the IRS spent 4 Billion on a new computer system and had nothing to show fo…

Also, this $200k app is probably an example of good government spending. Arguably, it's UK style Fabian socialism, in which government spending is making it impossible for better private solutions to flourish. Libertarian fanboys will whinge no matter what the government does, unless it does nothing.

200k is a small amount (for any big org), and it's actually going to something public facing, unlike 90% of government work which is simply faceless men putting obtuse reports in each other's pigeon holes. Do we really want to attack one of the few times the government actually tries to make their work relevant to the public?

You could equally argue that the 1% is wasting billions on stupid sock puppet ads for online pet shops, photo sharing apps, and AOL. Or on stock options for chefs and masseuses. Or on million dollar teams that do nothing more than re-invent wheels, badly.

It's arguable that the government should be doing this at all. But I certainly believe that if government should be doing anything, they should be making their work available to the general public. I don't think they got screwed - 200k for an app is not a giant rip-off. They might have been able to do it cheaper, but it's not totally out of line with the sort of crap industry does.

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#142

Post by 101001010111 »

rbarooah wrote: post #126
101001010111 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the reply. Did you notice my choice to use the words "can produce" (as in "sometimes") not the word "produce" (as in "always")? I would never make the later statement: open projects always produce higher quality software than proprietary ones. That's not my belief. As such, you are asking me in your last sentence if I have evidence to support a statement I would never make. Of course, the answer is no, bec…

I did notice. I don't think you're claiming that open source software is always better. I do think you're claiming that overall open source software is systematically better in some way than proprietary software, obviously not in every instance and subject to noise and variance. Feel free to correct me if you not making any such claim. I'm asking for evidence because you stated catgorically that evidence exists but I…

I'm not making any such claim. But I'm curious why you want to see me as making that claim. Why would you be interested in evidence that open source projects produce generally/consistently better software than proprietary projects for the same sort of problems?

As for evidence that open source projects can (sometimes) produce "high quality" software, TCP/IP is the first example that comes to mind.

Once upon a time, there was a government software project, a government contractor and a grad student...

Assuming the usual kernels, we're all using that code, or derivatives of it, right now.

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#143

Post by buff-a »

bigiain wrote: post #139
electromagnetic wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but for work-for-hire it's off by a factor of 2-5 rather than a factor of 10. I know with my work, when we're doing construction contracts with the municipal governments we charge at least double and we're the most expensive in the area to begin with (we have guys who've been employed for 20+ years, rather than guys who've been employed for the last 9 months). So I'd say it's probably on-target for a government con…

I'll add here too - there's a _lot_ of other work besides the actual coding that goes into getting a piece of software sold to a customer like a government department or big corporation. Even if the "6 hour" estimate for development time is within half an order of magnitude of being correct, there's a great deal of work needed to be done both before and after that to make the sale work. How do you know what code to w…

You seem to be arguing that a lot of work went into selling this piece of shit to the government, and so therefore, we the people, should pay for the cost of that selling too? I know that is how it works: I bribe a government official to buy my turd, and then they spend tax payer money to cover the cost of the turd, plus the cost of the bribe. But you seem to be saying that that is ok. o_O

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#145

Post by buff-a »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #123

This is definitely hacker-bait. Cue up all the folks complaining about wasteful government, then cue up the hotshot programmer folks who will tell us they can code this in 2 hours while drunk, then cue up the FOIA folks, then the folks who feel any critique at all of government is indicative of right-wing extremism, and so on. I remember when the IRS spent 4 Billion on a new computer system and had nothing to show fo…

And then cue up the "realist" who says "this is just how it is".

This IS newsworthy. This shit should be the only news until it fucking stops. As you say: "But there simply is no system in place for shutting things down. It just keeps growing." until it collapses. These things don't end well. I say lets fix it.

Brought to you by the "doom sayer". Next!

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#146

Post by buff-a »

gte910h wrote: post #11

The problem with the government trying to do something is that anyone who's really really qualified will find the paperwork, compliance, and bidding procedures way too complicated for the sums of money involved. The Android app cost 106k btw. So looking at this guys hourly rate, it would take approximately 6 months of 40 hour weeks for him to cost that much to do the app. So if he: Learned out to submit the forms tha…

You seem to be arguing this as if this is reality. What you are stating is the justification. Its the theater. The story. The reality is that there are two ways to get people to give you money.

1. Make something people want.

2. Bribe people in government to give you enough money to cover cost of said bribe, plus handsome profit, plus possibly actually making something, and then have the government force those people to pay through taxes.

I dare say that what you describe may even have been the original idea, but the facts of (2) are unarguable. Sometimes (for really big ticket items) the government official has to wait until they leave government to get the paycheck, but claim it they do.

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#147

Post by VMG »

AJ007 wrote: post #40
_ea1k wrote: post #3

I'm curious if this really surprises anyone here that the entire process for the government purchasing three mobile applications (Android, iOS, and BB) was ~200k. This seems pretty ordinary/normal to me.

In the governments defense, I think big corporations routinely overpay for web development and marketing expenses. Aanecdotally, a girl I know who works for a pharmaceutical company said they spent $60,000 on a three page web site. Then I sit in Starbucks and listen to some freelancer get reamed for charging $1,000 to build and manage some guy's website. One would think that the price discrepancies for the same produ…

> In the governments defense, I think big corporations routinely overpay for web development and marketing expenses.

In the big corporations defense, they don't use tax dollars.

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#148

Post by rbarooah »

101001010111 wrote: post #142
rbarooah wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did notice. I don't think you're claiming that open source software is always better. I do think you're claiming that overall open source software is systematically better in some way than proprietary software, obviously not in every instance and subject to noise and variance. Feel free to correct me if you not making any such claim. I'm asking for evidence because you stated catgorically that evidence exists but I…

I'm not making any such claim. But I'm curious why you want to see me as making that claim. Why would you be interested in evidence that open source projects produce generally/consistently better software than proprietary projects for the same sort of problems? As for evidence that open source projects can (sometimes) produce "high quality" software, TCP/IP is the first example that comes to mind. Once upon a time, t…

It should be obvious why I think you're making such a claim - you said: "What's different now is that there is historical evidence that open source projects can produce higher quality software than proprietary ones."

By using the word 'higher' you clearly indicate that you think that there is a quality advantage to open source software.

If you don't think there's an advantage to open source development, then I don't see what meaning you were trying to convey in your original comment.

It seems bizarre that you don't know why I'd be interested in evidence that open source projects have systematically better quality. It would be a major result with implications in project planning, system architecture, organizational philosophy etc. To date, I have never seen such evidence - only reasoned opinion which is valuable but inconclusive.

If you had evidence, I'm sure you'd have produced it by now.

It's obvious (as I stated in my first reply) that open source can sometimes produce high quality software. Another great example would be webkit.

I thought you knew of some evidence that might show why governments should choose open source, other than opinion and dogma.

I'm disappointed that it doesn't exist because it would be powerfully persuasive in furthering the cause of open source.

Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application

#150

Post by bigiain »

buff-a wrote: post #143
bigiain wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll add here too - there's a _lot_ of other work besides the actual coding that goes into getting a piece of software sold to a customer like a government department or big corporation. Even if the "6 hour" estimate for development time is within half an order of magnitude of being correct, there's a great deal of work needed to be done both before and after that to make the sale work. How do you know what code to w…

You seem to be arguing that a lot of work went into selling this piece of shit to the government, and so therefore, we the people, should pay for the cost of that selling too? I know that is how it works: I bribe a government official to buy my turd, and then they spend tax payer money to cover the cost of the turd, plus the cost of the bribe. But you seem to be saying that that is ok. o_O

Well, I guess the "How did you even know there was an opportunity?" bit could be considered "selling", but all of the rest of that is stuff that needs decision making and agreement on both sides before the bill gets paid. And somebody other than the developer is going to have to do and/or manage it all. Who's paying for that time?

Or do you honestly think 6 hours worth of coding @ $100/hr is all a job like that requires?

Have you ever worked with a government department?

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