[openspending-dev] Modularisation

Thu Mar 14 10:10:14 UTC 2013

Thanks Rufus,

Lisa and I focussed additionally on "cuts", given that that is a very hot
topic in the UK and were experimenting with how you could tell which
contractors were cut, which sectors etc.

Lisa has the more extensive list :)

Lucy

On 13 March 2013 10:45, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org> wrote:

> First, though replying to Adam I want to a say a big +1 to Lucy 2c post :-)
>
> @Adam: some examples of questions I think one could answer are:
>
> ### Allocation
>
> * What's the rough allocation of government money to specific spending
> areas?
> * Did the gov spend more on defence than on education last year, or more
> on energy subsidies for non-renewables than on renewable energy?
>
> ### Who's getting the money
>
> * Which companies got paid the most by the my gov (federal or local) last
> year
> * Obvious extensions of this e.g. by sector (e.g. for waste removal, or on
> mobile service) or by area (in my district, in my street ...)
>   * (In a perfect world) - which contracts these payments
> * Is company X receiving money from the gov (is company X connected to the
> gov in some way ...)
>
> ### Are they OK?
>
> * Which local or national govs have the biggest deficits, which may go
> bankrupt
> * Are govs doing an especially great job
> * Does the budget match what was actually spent
>
> I'd also like to OS cover *public* corporate financial info at some point
> which add many additional questions we could answer ...
>
> Rufus
>
>
> On 12 March 2013 21:56, Adam Stiles <adam.d.stiles at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Lucy,
>>
>> Would love to see the "list of questions that it is possible to answer
>> with Spending Data". This could be really helpful for communicating the
>> usefulness of OS at the local level.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Adam
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 12, 2013 at 12:01 PM, Lucy Chambers <lucy.chambers at okfn.org>wrote:
>>
>>> Hi guys, My 2cts here:
>>>
>>> We're not going to put effort into supporting deployments over the other
>>> important work that we need to get done. Our priority at OpenSpending has
>>> always been that a core database is the most powerful thing that
>>> OpenSpending has to offer, we'd like to encourage people to put their data
>>> into the main database. At the same time - people want something that looks
>>> like they want it to, that they can customize etc, that is why satellite
>>> sites are important.
>>>
>>> Lisa and I sat down last week and drew up a list of questions that it is
>>> possible to answer with Spending Data. The answers to these questions are
>>> cool, but there aren't that many questions, so if we can expose a nice UI
>>> to make them easier to answer, I think that is a huge win.
>>>
>>> My belief (I am informed) that all of these are possible to answer with
>>> the infrastructure that we have using the API - if we get to a stage where
>>> we are needing to do cross-dataset analysis beyond the basic search
>>> function (e.g. 25k and £500 spend) then we may need to reconsider, but I
>>> need someone to come to me first with a concrete question that they would
>>> like to try and answer and I'll be very willing to listen!
>>>
>>> To be clear, I think OpenSpending's priorities right now are:
>>>
>>> * Getting Spending Stories features shipped
>>> * Getting a clear UX to reflect our priority that satellite sites are
>>> the way to go
>>> * Making the satellite sites as easy to create as possible - push and
>>> encourage deployments of those. Building out the toolkit for these.
>>>
>>> When Spending Stories is over in November. We can sit down and take
>>> another look at this, I recognise that there are definitely plusses in this
>>> model, but from what I understand, this refactor could take 2-3 months, and
>>> I'm not sure we have that much time now!
>>>
>>> Brutal and honest,
>>>
>>> Lucy
>>>
>>>
>>> On 11 March 2013 10:26, Tryggvi Björgvinsson <
>>> tryggvi.bjorgvinsson at okfn.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Þann sun 10.mar 2013 20:42, skrifaði Friedrich Lindenberg:
>>>> > On Sun, Mar 10, 2013 at 8:47 PM, Martin Keegan <
>>>> martin.keegan at okfn.org>wrote:
>>>> >> The value of specialisation, and the interchangeability of parts, has
>>>> >> > been understood since the writing of Adam Smith in the 18th
>>>> century.
>>>> >> >
>>>> > I think we need to build on this link! Let's have a panel session with
>>>> > Margaret Thatcher and Wolfgang Schäuble to discuss the applicability
>>>> of the
>>>> > CAP theorem to the European single market!
>>>>
>>>> Now that's not fair. Martin claimed that the understanding of this value
>>>> has been understood since then and you respond with something like this.
>>>>
>>>> If you want something more relevant and recent I propose you look into
>>>> the works of David Parnas, Alan Kay and Larry Constantine (to name a
>>>> few). I wouldn't say their findings are detrimental to software
>>>> development. I'd actually say that their findings improved software
>>>> development.
>>>>
>>>> > All I'm saying is: are we doing this because we actually have some
>>>> concrete
>>>> > architectural issue that gets solved or because it turns on our inner
>>>> geek?
>>>>
>>>> From my perspective the reason I want to look into this is because we
>>>> have to maintain the code base.
>>>>
>>>> I understand that you don't want the software to have a good design
>>>> because then we focus too much on design instead of doing. There is
>>>> nobody proposing that we should halt all development until we've
>>>> redesigned everything. I want to look into this as a long-term goal for
>>>> the project, where developers keep an eye out for what can be made more
>>>> modular.
>>>>
>>>> I would actually like to hear more from the community, especially those
>>>> who actively develop (or want to help develop) OpenSpending.
>>>>
>>>> Any thoughts?
>>>>
>>>> /Tryggvi
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Adam Stiles
>> 510.280.4862
>>
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>
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