
I replicated an $86M project using open-source libraries (2017) - bedros
https://medium.com/free-code-camp/how-i-replicated-an-86-million-project-in-57-lines-of-code-277031330ee9
======
aresant
Actually an interesting project and in the authors follow up article he
explains his motivation vs standing for the “click bait” knee jerk:

“Most readers saw it for what it was: a proof of concept to spark discussion
about the use of open source technology, government spending, and one man’s
desire to build cool stuff from his couch.”

[https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/remember-
that-86-million-l...](https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/remember-
that-86-million-license-plate-scanner-i-replicated-heres-what-happened-
next-9f3c64e8f22b/?source=post_page---------------------------)

~~~
close04
> Since then, the reactions have been overwhelming. My article received over
> 100,000 hits in the first day, and at last glance sits somewhere around
> 450,000. I’ve been invited to speak on local radio talk shows and at a
> conference in California. I think someone may have misread Victoria, AU as
> Victoria, BC.

> I have met for coffee with various local developers and big name firms alike

But anyone who saw clickbait titles for what they are (putting the rest of the
controversial claims aside) were just pedants:

> Pedants have pointed out [...]

------
BlackLotus89
A few things that bug me (apart from filming open spaces and auto process
those information is:

1) accuracy confidence of 90% is high enough for the author.

2) the recognizee plates are all send to a webservice. If grepped by IP you
could "track" peoples cars/pinpoint the time to a location which is too much
of an invasion of privacy for me. An offline database of stolen vehicles
license plates would be better

3) they really put 86M$ in a system for this m-( makes me a bit sad

~~~
Topgamer7
Google knows where you are, who you are, what you search for, where you live
and work, and what you buy. Everyone these days has a lot of data on you.

------
hirundo
> Teslas vehicles are already brimming with cameras and sensors with the
> ability to receive OTA updates — imagine turning these into a fleet of
> virtual good samaritans.

%s/good samaritans/rat finks/g

[https://jonathanjanz.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/sutherland....](https://jonathanjanz.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/sutherland.jpg)

------
close04
There was also a reply to this article at that time:
[https://medium.com/@ryanfb/how-i-failed-to-replicate-
an-86-m...](https://medium.com/@ryanfb/how-i-failed-to-replicate-
an-86-million-project-in-1-line-of-code-615048a1f9d0)

I'm fairly convinced that the project cost _a lot_ more than it should have.
But the claim in the title is also a bit disingenuous. 57 lines of his own
code is not "57 lines of code", and the results may not be at the same level.

Later edit: He does make the same point... in a another post where he admits
to the clickbaity title, the overwhelming reaction (as many such titles
trigger), and claims people pointing out the lack of support for the
controversial core claims are pedants. [0]

[0] [https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/remember-
that-86-million-l...](https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/remember-
that-86-million-license-plate-scanner-i-replicated-heres-what-happened-
next-9f3c64e8f22b/)

~~~
gumby
I believe the author made that very point.

------
abhisuri97
Really cool PoC. Though there is a lot of work that has to be done to get this
production-ready, I really can't imagine it being more than $1-5m. I'd be
really interested to see how the $86m breaks down.

~~~
anm89
It's government so that budget is paying for n levels of subcontractors
subcontracting subcontractors, unions, oversight comittees to make sure the
proper unions were involved, layers of beurocrats who do some things but
nobody is really sure,regulators to make sure the beurocrats were following
governmental standards, and regulators to to regulate the beurocrat
regulators.

86m on a government project breaks down to about 1-5m in development budget.

------
cryptica
Experts might be quick to point out that there is more to the system than
merely being able to identify license plates; for example, it has to be able
to operate on a national scale in a distributed way.

In spite of this, I still I think that the author's point holds - $86 million
is a ridiculous sum for such a system.

Government contracts are corruption through ignorance (or is it pretend-
ignorance?). Software does not cost that much to produce these days even at
scale.

~~~
moksly
These ridiculous prices are common in enterprise, not just the public sector.
You just rarely hear about it when a bank spends 100 million on something that
should have been build for 10 in the perfect world. One of the reasons you
hear about this in the public sector is actually because we have systems to
combat corruption. We don’t just hand out contracts to who we want, to get a
public contract you go through a process called procurement, which typically
requires a lot of upfront work both for the project but also legally and you
have no idea if your bid is gonna to win.

It’s a lot more complicated of course, and one of the reasons is the massive
bureaucracy. It’s both good and bad, on one hand it protects us from a public
sector that buys software from sketchy people who go “I can do that 100
million project for 10”, exactly like I just did, and then completely fail to
deliver. That’s not something you can do in enterprise, that whole move fast
and break things simply doesn’t work when your results need to hold up in
elections every four years.

Of course this exclusion of small agile companies who can’t afford to play
into the public procurement system, means the companies who win the contracts
are capable of milking us. Because the truth is, that we don’t get they
alternative you think about. No one actually submits a 10 million bid for that
100 million system. Instead we’ll get a 93 million and a 86 million bid, and
then we pick the 86 million one.

Typically less than 20% or the money goes to actual development though. The
vast majority goes into whatever project management, governance, process
modelling, lean, implementation strategies, training and all that other
bullshit software companies sell you. And then 5 years later they fail to
deliver and it ends up costing 10 million extra.

We really need a new model for this, and that’s where you and I probably
agree, but it’s just not going to happen when not a single elected official in
a country knows how to code.

~~~
cryptica
All this bureaucracy does not seem to have stopped corporations like Oracle
and IBM from legally stealing taxpayer dollars.

If anything, the bureaucracy is creating corruption. The money is going
straight into the pockets of billionaires and thereby exacerbating the
centralization of wealth, creating monopolies, reducing consumer options, and
replacing good useful jobs with useless office jobs.

------
nafizh
AFAIK, anyone who works in these kinds of projects uses open source libraries
as they are the prevalent ones. So, I am a little perplexed with the emphasis
on 'using open-source libraries'.

------
floraaffogato
So how much does he earn from this project worthy of $86?

------
visualstudio
uses openalpr. 57 lines my ass.

~~~
soganess
He also used a compiler, but real programmers never do that. Maybe he used an
IDE like Visual Studio that does a lot of real-time checking to make sure the
code is correct before the compiler runs. Don't even get me start on the fact
that he used off an off-the-shelf von neumann machine. Basically, the ghost of
Von Neumann did allllllllllll the _actual_ work and this guy is taking all the
credit.

If you aren't writing your own Turing machine code in a language you
developed, proved that language is Turing complete on the system you built, by
hand(no help needed right?), that simulates the Turing structure on a state
machine, you are not a programmer. Then, of course, wrote the OS(what's the
name of your OS? I trying to become a real programmer and needs some pointers
on scheduling). Don't forget to come up with your own machine learning model
that doesn't use any of Shannon's llllllllame theories, doesn't rely on SVMs,
neutral networks, or those weird upside trees(yuck) that those total losers
with no programming skill what-so-ever, use.

Oh wait, you're still not a real programmer then; I almost forgot that the CT
thesis is TOTAL unproven BS. No real programmer would stand for that. They are
so logical and perfect in their understanding. So, if you can spare a minute
from all the real programming you are doing, you should probably come up with
your own model of computation, just so no one calls you out for not being a
real programmer. Which, of course, you are. Wolfram did it and _everybody_
loved his "original" work. Of course, you'll then prove that this model can
solve the halting problem in O(1). Wait, wait, wait, while you are at that,
the PH hierarchy is also total unproven BS(look at me being so forgetful, I'm
just not a real programmer, yet). Can you even believe that all those idiot
nonprogrammers ever proved was P < EXPTIME, duuuuuuuuuuuh. You'll need to come
up with your own classification system that isn't so broken. You don't even
need to do much(what is NP even? And who decide to call it Merlin-Arthur? Is
that a joke? Real programmer never joke about code.) because all your _real_
code will run in polynomial time and always be deterministic...

What a Charlatan, amirite?

Programmers/Data Scientists stand on the shoulders of giants so large it is a
serious undertaking to fully realize just how high up one truly is.

------
Topgamer7
The title should include (2017)

~~~
bedros
thank you, I updated it

------
xwdv
“I replicated an $86M project by combining several open source libraries built
on the backs of other developers whose names will go unnoticed using 57 lines
of glue code.”

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
That will never fail to be the case when using open source libraries. That's
actually kind of the whole point of open source.

~~~
xwdv
Using open source libraries is one thing, writing gratuitous articles about
how you did something in X lines of code is another.

IMO, any article about how you did something in X lines of code is worthless
unless you wrote every last line of code yourself. It only serves to impress
people who know nothing about software. Lines of code you wrote is by no means
a useful metric for evaluating complexity given the amount of library usage
there is out there.

I could write articles about how I built $100M+ applications in a couple lines
of code, but I have more integrity than that.

~~~
beatgammit
I don't think it's there to impress anyone about the author's skills, it's
there to show how much open source can do. It's amazing that OP could mostly
reproduce a huge software project without much effort.

