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

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

#521

Post by snarf21 » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 1:45 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #115

> Deloitte is the only contractor that can meet the project requirements, because configuration of the VAMS application is occurring using Deloitte’s propriety GovConnect platform. Therefore, no other contractor has rights or access to leverage the system to carry out O&M activities, such as the administration of the system, change and defect management and end user support. As the only contractor with the GovConnect…

This is a major problem with using contractors. They bill by the hour. Their continued employment is not dependent on doing a good job. They half ass everything because it is about billing and being done. Also, doing a bad job means "overruns" for more free money. The government needs a Department of Technology that runs all these systems for all national systems that are needed. This isn't like building a combat fighter, it would be straightforward to be build a team that can build a scalable website with today's technology.

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

#522

Post by bdavis__ » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 1:45 PM UTC

belter5 wrote: post #235

nataz wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy gets it. Development is literally the simplest part of the problem set. The intersection of domain expertise, contracting/procurement creativity, and technical evaluation is the tough part to wrangle. Getting to the point where development can start is 95% of the battle in my experience. Not to trivialize the actual development portion of the project, but most missteps happen early, dooming projects before a…

There was just an article on here last week about how software development is a learning process and programs are just artifacts of that process. Big, old, messy, and highly regulated domains will obviously be hard to learn.

not to mention the fact that by definition the software developers know very little about the domain (given that 1/2 of them have less than 5 years of experience)

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

#523

Post by cromwellian » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 1:48 PM UTC

Beltway Bandits win again. Literally the worse kind of grift and project paralysis. I worked on government contracts in the 90s, and the process is so full of grifters and people over billing, companies selling software licenses far above market rate with supposed levels of support and reliability that are actually no better, or worse, that I wouldn’t recommend anyone work in that sector.

Oh and all of this talk about 95% of the work being understanding the problem or integrating with legacy government systems, gimme a break. Every time I’ve seen someone purport to integrate with existing government systems it’s always been a buggy disaster and hideous from the user perspective.

This is the same kind of rot that infects a lot of enterprise software. Addiction to hyper complexity, too many layers, too many points of failure.

Just how complicated does a vaccine management system need to be? If you’re adding more and more requirements, it’s not software that’s the problem, it’s the requirements that the vaccine distribution is being made more complicated than it is needs to be.

I think at this point, a random distribution would be more effective than the complicated rollout they’re trying.

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

#524

Post by GizmoSwan » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 1:56 PM UTC

anticapit wrote: post #476

brtkdotse wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was some hubbub in Sweden a while back about the armed forces putting up a _really_ specific job ad, like it was tailored to one person. Well, it turned out it was, because the person posting the add forgot to take out the phrase “Make sure Björn meets these requirements” in the middle of the ad.

This is exactly how American companies game the h1b visa system. When I worked at AVG we would write job requirement so specific to an Israel developers who worked for one of our subsidiaries that it was clear no other human being in the world could qualify for it.

Working for a subsidiary has a preferred status for getting a work permit in US.

It is called L-1 Intra-Company Transfer Visa: L-1A and L-1B for transfer of managers and specialists

https://workpermit.com/immigration/usa/employees-guide-us-im...

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

#525

Post by user5994461 » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 1:59 PM UTC

juliendorra wrote: post #466

brtkdotse wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was some hubbub in Sweden a while back about the armed forces putting up a _really_ specific job ad, like it was tailored to one person. Well, it turned out it was, because the person posting the add forgot to take out the phrase “Make sure Björn meets these requirements” in the middle of the ad.

It’s an open secret in France that many, maybe most (?) calls for new teaching/research positions in university labs are designed to be won by someone already attached to the lab (like a doctoral student for example, or someone with a temporary contract). In French it’s called being "fléché", as in attributed for someone. It’s of course totally contrary to the rules. (It’s most of the time somehow well intentioned, f…

For more context: When opening a permanent position, research institutions are required by law to advertise the position publicly and interview candidates.

We are talking about permanent positions guaranteed for life with fantastic perks. They're extremely competitive to get.

When a permanent position is opened, it's often for a position that's been contracted out for a while.

Want to hire the contractor who's been doing the job perfectly for 2 years? It's simply not possible because of the law above. Gotta advertise the job nationwide and run formal interviews. An interview panel will run interviews and pick whoever they like (it takes months).

It's not as rigged as the poster makes it out to be. The panel is 5+ random people selected among a very large company. They don't know that the position is tailored to someone and they couldn't care less either way, they're all people with a cushy position guaranteed for life, no favor to give. (It's really the opposite of Russia/China for those doing the comparison).

It's rigged in the sense that if there was somebody doing the job for year, they're probably more qualified than you are.

This rule exists to prevent middle managers from doing empire building and growing their headcount indefinitely. It works as you can see above where a better person was chosen.

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

#526

Post by notapenny » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

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.

According to the login page for the system it works in FF, Safari and Edge as well. I suppose "only Chrome" is more accurately "if it works in Chrome, it'll run in everything but IE".

Still makes me wonder why though, most projects I've worked on have have to support IE, and though it annoys developers because they cannot use the hotHewThingN api, mostly its fine.

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

#527

Post by xondono » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

brtkdotse wrote: post #415

aasasd wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reads like a copy of Russian government contract practices. Put up a contest, list requirements in such a way that only one company would satisfy them without going bust or mad, award the contract to that company. ‘Make the thing using this and that technologies’ does appear regularly.

There was some hubbub in Sweden a while back about the armed forces putting up a _really_ specific job ad, like it was tailored to one person. Well, it turned out it was, because the person posting the add forgot to take out the phrase “Make sure Björn meets these requirements” in the middle of the ad.

This is how hiring works in most public tech centers and colleges here in Spain.

The job postings are useless, if you want to work there what you need is an introduction (someone to give your CV to a lead that needs hands on deck). Then 2 to 3 months later a job posting with an almost complete copy of your CV will appear and they’ll hire you.

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

#528

Post by patentatt » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

eigenvector wrote: post #277

nataz wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy gets it. Development is literally the simplest part of the problem set. The intersection of domain expertise, contracting/procurement creativity, and technical evaluation is the tough part to wrangle. Getting to the point where development can start is 95% of the battle in my experience. Not to trivialize the actual development portion of the project, but most missteps happen early, dooming projects before a…

Now think of the problem in reverse, from the government's side. Why are they contracting it out when all of the most difficult aspects involve integrating with government systems, policies and personnel - things that government already knows how to do? "Because we don't have the expertise to do software development." The comments in this thread, which I fully agree with by the way, just cement my belief that if gove…

The sad, true reason why they don’t is that government programmer jobs will pay 1/2 - 1/3 what a private sector job will pay in the DMV (DC, MD, VA). And the ironic part is that the reason private sector pay is so high is largely attributable to these big federal contracts being handed out. But as things are, the federal government cannot hire enough qualified people in the location (by DC) that they want to.

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

#529

Post by ceejayoz » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 2:08 PM UTC

billions wrote: post #135

ceejayoz wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Hubble Space Telescope? (and the other "Great Observatories" satellites)

Hubble was funded in the 1970s with a proposed launch in 1983, but the project was beset by technical delays, budget problems, and the 1986 Challenger disaster. It was finally launched by Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990, but its main mirror had been ground incorrectly, resulting in spherical aberration that compromised the telescope's capabilities. The optics were corrected to their intended quality by a servicing mi…

“Figured out on-orbit repair and upgrade of a school bus sized telescope” sounds pretty cool to me.

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

#530

Post by xondono » Sun, Jan 31, 2021, 2:09 PM UTC

nataz wrote: post #226

mdorazio wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These contracts are generally bloated, but if you've never seen how a $10M+ contract for things like this works you're probably thinking about it wrong. The actual development piece is a pretty small portion of the overall work. The bulk of it is figuring out all the requirements, wrangling legacy systems and data into some kind of shape that can either be interfaced with or imported, documentation, support (includin…

This guy gets it. Development is literally the simplest part of the problem set. The intersection of domain expertise, contracting/procurement creativity, and technical evaluation is the tough part to wrangle. Getting to the point where development can start is 95% of the battle in my experience. Not to trivialize the actual development portion of the project, but most missteps happen early, dooming projects before a…

What you mean is that 95% of the time and money spent is about different bureaucrats fighting over turf wars and trying to get some credit in ,to be able to claim responsibility if it works, but at the same time not exposing themselves too much, just in case it blows badly.