Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

technologyreview.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 688 posts

Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

#61

Post by walrus01 »

didibus wrote: post #13

I just don't understand these software deals, the price is so high. At 44 million, you can hire 146 engineers each paid 300k for a full year. Trust me, you need much less to build something like this, and there's no excuse for it to suck so bad. I'm also curious, anyone know where the development actually happened? Did Deloitte further subcontracted out? Was it outsourced?

If you want to see another ultimate example of this sort of contracting gone awry, google "canada federal payroll phoenix system"

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=canada+fe...

example news URL: https://www.itworldcanada.com/article/phoenix-payroll-system...

Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

#62

Post by exabrial »

didibus wrote: post #13

I just don't understand these software deals, the price is so high. At 44 million, you can hire 146 engineers each paid 300k for a full year. Trust me, you need much less to build something like this, and there's no excuse for it to suck so bad. I'm also curious, anyone know where the development actually happened? Did Deloitte further subcontracted out? Was it outsourced?

This is way the government works and why taxation is the fuel that feeds the fire.

Trust me, this money did not go to waste. Someone got paid, someone has a new yacht.

Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

#63

Post by uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #48
lmilcin wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you can make simple functionalities so baroque that you will not be able to work with them without some kind of notes. It is not easy to define in contract what is sane code.

But that just sounds like regular big company codebases. I see no difference. At Scottrade, I was horrified to find a 5k or 10k line Date C++ class. They'd copy paste functions to handle each leap year individually. The function names themselves contained the specific year. They also yelled at me for downloading the source code to `touch`. It was nice to get to see the crazy side of software. Everyone was deadpan ser…

Well surely there were tests...

Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

#65

Post by [deleted] »

exabrial wrote: post #62
didibus wrote: post #13

I just don't understand these software deals, the price is so high. At 44 million, you can hire 146 engineers each paid 300k for a full year. Trust me, you need much less to build something like this, and there's no excuse for it to suck so bad. I'm also curious, anyone know where the development actually happened? Did Deloitte further subcontracted out? Was it outsourced?

This is way the government works and why taxation is the fuel that feeds the fire. Trust me, this money did not go to waste. Someone got paid, someone has a new yacht.

[deleted]

Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

#66

Post by presentation »

johnthuss wrote: post #54

My favorite part was this quote: “It won’t work on Internet Explorer; it only works in Chrome.” As if that is a serious problem.

It is if you’re working in government or other fields like medicine, where a ton of both legacy and new software is still being written with IE as the target, that have prevented people from moving off it.

Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

#67

Post by NearAP »

After reading the article, I think it boils down to

a) Poor/lack of understanding of who the actual users are e.g. these are systems that will be used by both the young and old people, especially older people in the early stages since they are the ones at the front of the vaccine line; worst case, the system should have been optimized for them.

b) bullet a then leads to poor requirements e.g. given that most libraries are shut down (lots of elderly people get help with online stuff at community centers/libraries), requirements should have included less rigidity (on errors) or a module that is fun and friendly that walks people through it, system should be designed with 'plain' mobile first in mind, and account for a person being both a patient and an admin, etc

Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

#68

Post by presentation »

EduardLev wrote: post #29

Good article. I thought this line from the article was interesting: > Online sign-ups are especially challenging for older people, perhaps the worst group to beta-test a new system. I think I understand the author's intent when saying "worst group", but in this case I can't imagine a better group. They're literally the first people who will need to be using this system! If you beta-test your product with the people w…

Worst in the sense that older people often are unfamiliar with computers at all - perhaps that group should have robust options that don’t come in the form of a web app if many have never even used a computer before.

Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

#69

Post by ndiscussion »

tidepod12 wrote: post #57
stefan_ wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deloitte is a whole lot better manipulating and sweet talking the government than it is at building anything, that is for sure. Surely their track record should see them permanently disqualified?

I'm sure if you actually looked at their full track record, the vast vast majority of projects probably result in "mediocre but workable" systems, you just don't hear about them because that's a boring headline. Deloitte is a $40 billion company, it's not like every single one of their projects is a complete failure.

> Deloitte is a $40 billion company, it's not like every single one of their projects is a complete failure.

Citation needed, see Oracle, many companies have grown that large on the backs of taxpayers by employing the best "Sales" techniques in the biz.

Re: CDC website built by Deloitte at a cost of $44M is abandoned due to bugs

#70

Post by stefan_ »

didibus wrote: post #13

I just don't understand these software deals, the price is so high. At 44 million, you can hire 146 engineers each paid 300k for a full year. Trust me, you need much less to build something like this, and there's no excuse for it to suck so bad. I'm also curious, anyone know where the development actually happened? Did Deloitte further subcontracted out? Was it outsourced?

Apparently this is the system:

https://vams.cdc.gov/vaccineportal/s/login/

It didn't load earlier (infinite redirect), right now its a Salesforce error page, of course. Salesforce and Deloitte, a match made in heaven.

Post reply on HN