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Why does it have to be an app? This is the part that confuse d me the most. Do it from an web page, use cloud, heck, it could even be cheaper. You only had 100

Why does it have to be an app? This is the part that confuse d me the most. Do it from an web page, use cloud, heck, it could even be cheaper. You only had 1000 precincts, all you had to deal with is 1000 calls - and if one of them went wrong, you'll let that person know through some kind of reviewing mechanism. I understand that $60K is nothing but this kind of failure is absurd.

madeofpalk 7y ago
I don't think this is a failure because an iOS app was delivered instead of a website.
- Aperocky 7y ago
  You can't update an iOS app as quickly as an website, unless it just request a view, which is even worse - just open it in safari/chrome. Looks like someone put wrong test headers in there, for what it does, the App is 26MB.
- jumelles 7y ago
  One of the issues was that the app needed to be installed outside of the App Store. It seems that by being an app and not a website another hurdle was introduced.
- untog 7y ago
  In a way it was. If you're building something that is going to function on one night and one night only you really, really don't want to choose tech that won't let you do an on-the-fly update if something goes wrong.
giarc 7y ago
I agree with you. Why an app, heck this could be done with a private Google Sheet. If they wanted call in tool, I could set this up in Twilio in 5-10 minutes.
- jliptzin 7y ago
  Yea, exactly. The stupidity is mind boggling.
supaDupaDev 7y ago
For clarification sake I suspect nobody is talking about a stand alone, run-on-the-mobile-OS, never to communicate via internet application. Idk for sure (wasn’t worth the investigation), but I’m betting their “app” is just shorthand for a web service that looks like a stand alone app through the UI. But regardless of the architectural nature of their (Shadow Inc’s) product it’s worth noting that high performing, mission critical software is challenging to do correctly. That is to say doing it with feasible, adequate solutions for security, availability, performance, testing, and usability from the end users and administrators perspectives is a whole world of responsibility for an engineering team, even if the objective seems trivial in casual conversation. People like to characterize software projects as “easy” and almost never know the scope of what they’re talking about. Idk anything about Shadow. But judging by their lack of effective consulting on this project, and consequently allowing such a terrible product to be released, they are bad at what they do. This whole incident should go down as a lesson to folks to not screw around with silly budgets, inexperienced teams, and unrealistic timelines when looking for quality software. That the DNC or whoever doesn’t know any better is a sign of the complete cultural ignorance that otherwise functional adults in this world have about the seriousness of software as any solution to any real-world problem. Everyone is a failure in this case: Shadow, the DNC, even the commenters still misunderstanding things on this thread.

madeofpalk 7y ago

I don't think this is a failure because an iOS app was delivered instead of a website.

Aperocky 7y ago
You can't update an iOS app as quickly as an website, unless it just request a view, which is even worse - just open it in safari/chrome. Looks like someone put wrong test headers in there, for what it does, the App is 26MB.
jumelles 7y ago
One of the issues was that the app needed to be installed outside of the App Store. It seems that by being an app and not a website another hurdle was introduced.
untog 7y ago
In a way it was. If you're building something that is going to function on one night and one night only you really, really don't want to choose tech that won't let you do an on-the-fly update if something goes wrong.

giarc 7y ago

I agree with you. Why an app, heck this could be done with a private Google Sheet. If they wanted call in tool, I could set this up in Twilio in 5-10 minutes.

jliptzin 7y ago
Yea, exactly. The stupidity is mind boggling.

supaDupaDev 7y ago

For clarification sake I suspect nobody is talking about a stand alone, run-on-the-mobile-OS, never to communicate via internet application. Idk for sure (wasn’t worth the investigation), but I’m betting their “app” is just shorthand for a web service that looks like a stand alone app through the UI. But regardless of the architectural nature of their (Shadow Inc’s) product it’s worth noting that high performing, mission critical software is challenging to do correctly. That is to say doing it with feasible, adequate solutions for security, availability, performance, testing, and usability from the end users and administrators perspectives is a whole world of responsibility for an engineering team, even if the objective seems trivial in casual conversation. People like to characterize software projects as “easy” and almost never know the scope of what they’re talking about. Idk anything about Shadow. But judging by their lack of effective consulting on this project, and consequently allowing such a terrible product to be released, they are bad at what they do. This whole incident should go down as a lesson to folks to not screw around with silly budgets, inexperienced teams, and unrealistic timelines when looking for quality software. That the DNC or whoever doesn’t know any better is a sign of the complete cultural ignorance that otherwise functional adults in this world have about the seriousness of software as any solution to any real-world problem. Everyone is a failure in this case: Shadow, the DNC, even the commenters still misunderstanding things on this thread.