Help Us Create vets.gov • Hacker News Board

Re: Help Us Create vets.gov

#11

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Nov 12, 2015, 10:22 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #10

brandonb wrote: post #6

FYI, the new vets.gov is a collaboration between the US Digital Service, one of the startups that came out of healthcare.gov (Ad Hoc LLC), the VA, and others: https://adhocteam.us/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/digital/united-states-digital-service https://www.fastcompany.com/3046756/obama-and-his-geeks If anybody has questions, I know there are USDS and Ad Hoc people who read HN.

I wonder if the US Digital Service will survive after the next president takes office? Do they have a federal mandate at this point or do they operate at the pleasure of Obama in particular? For example if a Republican took office would that person have to go out of their way to keep or ditch the services?

As I understand it, USDS is in the Executive Office of the President and would be very easy for a new President to dismantle, but its counsin 18F in GSA I slightly more secure (obviously, nothing in federal government is secure against strong enough political will against it.)

Re: Help Us Create vets.gov

#12

Post by zbgxyz » Thu, Nov 12, 2015, 10:36 PM UTC

So lame, you have to qualify for the GI Bill

Re: Help Us Create vets.gov

#13

Post by sbuccini » Thu, Nov 12, 2015, 10:41 PM UTC

kingkilr wrote: post #7

balls187 wrote: post #5

For a second, I thought that this was going to be an open source project and I was excited to be able to contribute.

https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/vets-websi... :-)

Is there any way those of us who are more experienced on the backend can help out?

Re: Help Us Create vets.gov

#14

Post by yourepowerless » Thu, Nov 12, 2015, 11:15 PM UTC

Good job guys, make that government which tortures and murders innocents more efficient!

This is no different than being a developer for ISIS.

Re: Help Us Create vets.gov

#15

Post by toomuchtodo » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 12:13 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #11

Someone1234 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the US Digital Service will survive after the next president takes office? Do they have a federal mandate at this point or do they operate at the pleasure of Obama in particular? For example if a Republican took office would that person have to go out of their way to keep or ditch the services?

As I understand it, USDS is in the Executive Office of the President and would be very easy for a new President to dismantle, but its counsin 18F in GSA I slightly more secure (obviously, nothing in federal government is secure against strong enough political will against it.)

What would happen to USDS federal government employees with a two year contract?

Re: Help Us Create vets.gov

#16

Post by llimllib » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 12:51 AM UTC

sbuccini wrote: post #13

kingkilr wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/vets-websi... :-)

Is there any way those of us who are more experienced on the backend can help out?

hmmm, one thing we could really use is some tests. Maybe you could write some simple capybara/rspec or equivalent integration tests for the site, just to make sure that its parts are functioning correctly?

Re: Help Us Create vets.gov

#17

Post by err4nt » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 1:43 AM UTC

Its titled 'Help us create vets.gov' and I don't see any call to action where I can contribute or find out more.

What sort of help are they looking for: content feedback, or hands-on stuff like front-end code?

Re: Help Us Create vets.gov

#18

Post by MarinaMartin » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 2:21 AM UTC

err4nt wrote: post #17

Its titled 'Help us create vets.gov' and I don't see any call to action where I can contribute or find out more. What sort of help are they looking for: content feedback, or hands-on stuff like front-end code?

There's a lightbulb in the bottom right you can click to give feedback. We have already gotten feedback that it's a little hard to find so we will fix that in the next day or so! And if you're a coder we would love comments and PRs in Github.

Re: Help Us Create vets.gov

#19

Post by joealba » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 2:52 AM UTC

llimllib wrote: post #16

sbuccini wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any way those of us who are more experienced on the backend can help out?

hmmm, one thing we could really use is some tests. Maybe you could write some simple capybara/rspec or equivalent integration tests for the site, just to make sure that its parts are functioning correctly?

Since this is a Jekyll site, I'm not sure what we could wrap tests around. The beauty of the static site generator is that it just always works -- at least as far as the html content is concerned.

Is there a specific javascript feature or interactive feature that you'd like help with testing?

Re: Help Us Create vets.gov

#20

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Nov 13, 2015, 3:00 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #15

dragonwriter wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, USDS is in the Executive Office of the President and would be very easy for a new President to dismantle, but its counsin 18F in GSA I slightly more secure (obviously, nothing in federal government is secure against strong enough political will against it.)

What would happen to USDS federal government employees with a two year contract?

As I understand, and I could be wrong, they have a limited term civil service appointment, not a contract for a fixed term; this is a maximum period for which they can be in a position, not a set time for which employment is promised.