School District App

[jagthedrummer]

This is just to capture my understanding of the discussion tonight about the school district app. I didn't take notes, so this is just what I remember. Please leave additions/complaints/comments below and I'll update the main description as needed.

Goal

Allow a person using the app to find the school district that they are currently in via geo-location. Optionally they could enter a street address.

App Overview

We'll need both an app server, and a GIS database of some sort. Heroku was mentioned as an ideal place to host the app. For app server Node or Rails was suggested, and Postgres with the PostGIS extension was suggested for the db.

Loading source data

We need to take the school district geo-data from data.okc.gov and load it into the GIS database.

Ideally we'd have a bit of code that would automate the import. This would allow for easier updating as the source data changes, or as new districts are added.

Geo-location user flow

Via geo-location we'll get a lat/lon point. Then we'd cross reference the lat/lon point with a db of school district coordinates to find the right district. Then we'd return a user friendly representation of the district data.

Address entry user flow

If the user opts for entering a street address we'd reverse geo-code the address to get a lat/lon point. Then we'd follow the procedure described above.

[mkchandler]

Thanks for mapping all this out @jagthedrummer. It looks like the correct flows to me. I will look back through my notes and add any additional items to this thread, then we can get a repo started for it.

[jagthedrummer]

Cool, Rob reached out to one of his peeps at Heroku, and they told him who to talk to about donations. Sounds like it probably won't be a big deal to get us hooked up, but it may be Jan before we're at the top of their list.

[mkchandler]

I found this web site yesterday: http://www.greatschools.org/. Do you all think that this idea is too close? I don't really want to reinvent anything that already exists.

[jagthedrummer]

Hmm, that is awfully close. Just to play Devils Advocate I think there's an argument to be made that for this first project we're more interested in learning how to work together managing a community project more than we are in creating something that no one has ever thought of before.

[mkchandler]

Yeah, I agree with that :-)

[mkchandler]

As we start to plan out the technical details, I want to make sure we have some devs with mapping experience involved. So pinging @DevinClark and @jvrousseau!

I would like to plan an evening that some of us can jump in the chat room and start ironing out some things with this project. Does a weeknight at around 8pm work for most of you? Let me know which day works best if possible. We will try to find a day to accommodate a majority.

Some questions to think about:

1. Technology stack (Ruby, node, golang...)
2. Data storage
3. Splitting up dev between front end, back end, and data import
4. Mapping tools and frameworks (Leaflet, etc.)

I'm just including the people who have been directly involved with this project so far, but everyone can join in the conversation.

cc: @jagthedrummer @cahiller @makenova @adamveld12

[jvrousseau]

@mkchandler I should be good to go. Just let me know what day and I'll make it work. Look forward to it!

[DevinClark]

@mkchandler I'm pretty much free whenever. Happy to help!

[mkchandler]

Thanks! Lets aim for Thursday, 12/11, at 8:00 PM in the Gitter chat room. Please reply with a 👍 or 👎 if you can or cannot make that day/time. We can move to another day if needed.

[jagthedrummer]

👍 I can make it tonight, but I may be just a tad late.

[mkchandler]

For further discussion on this project, please put it in the dedicated repo going forward: https://github.com/codeforokc/school-finder