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Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

gds.blog.gov.uk

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Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#71

Post by heurisko »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #67
dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #49

> We also need to operate with a growth mindset in GDS Is it just me or is it weird to see "startup speak" from gov agencies?

Also though... the actual content, why? Why does GDS need to operate with a "growth mindset"?

They qualify their usage of business-speak:

> Our growth strategy is obviously not about making profit, but we are a small team at the centre of government and we need to make sure our people and our money are focused on services that have the biggest reach and the most impact.

It's not quite Fry and Laurie yet. "Oh, you have shares in the Royal Family?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLfghLQE3F4

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#72

Post by londons_explore »

benj111 wrote: post #68

I wish this were spread to other government IT things. The NHS uses a patchwork of different systems. Why should every hospital have to sort out its own IT needs. Let the NHS do NHS things and have an IT branch providing standardised software for everyone.

Large government IT projects end up being done by companies expert in extracting as much cash from the government as possible. The end result is the product doesn't work properly and is massively over budget. Then the government is forced to hand over even more money to redesign bits to work better.

The government has been bitten by this many times, so now shys away from big IT systems. Instead every department has to build its own, usually with lots of Excel sheets and macros involved.

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#74

Post by eterm »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #67
dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #49

> We also need to operate with a growth mindset in GDS Is it just me or is it weird to see "startup speak" from gov agencies?

Also though... the actual content, why? Why does GDS need to operate with a "growth mindset"?

Cynically it can be seen as part of the war on introversion.

Consultancies rebadged introverts as having a "fixed mindset" and extroverts as having a "growth mindset" and then labelled having a fixed mindset as a terrible thing.

But that criticism is demonstration of a "fixed mindset" and therefore should be discarded and should be ignored.

That's the cynical take. The less cynical take is that having an open mind helps businesses and services adapt to their needs.

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#75

Post by wyuenho »

Denvercoder9 wrote: post #18
wyuenho wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> To be fair, Europe as a whole is 20-30 years behind on most fronts from the state of the art of information technology. This is a gross, unjustified generalization. Sure, there's a lot of old crap around, but that's no different from other parts of the world; but there's also lots of new, modern stuff, with a huge diversity across the continent. Just to give a common counterexample, the SEPA system allows me to tri…

Where do you think those digital infrastructure are hosted?

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#76

Post by atwood22 »

maccard wrote: post #50
atwood22 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's quite a stretch. Ask any engineer about having that a-ha moment in the shower, or when out for a walk. Downtime is incredibly important for mentally intense work. I agree but I think you’ll find that working usually contributes economic value. Not working usually doesn’t. The key word being usually. if you’re in doubt, just try to record the economic value delivered by your downtime. How many hours are idled…

By that logic economic value is only created by active work, and not by any of the thought process that goes into it. That's an asinine thought process.

Yes, value is created by work. The asinine thought process is to somehow suggest that a meaningful amount of economic output is intangibly created by not working. Economic output isn’t the end-all-be-all metric to use for life. But it’s a little crazy to suggest that you can move this particular metric by doing nothing in aggregate.

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#77

Post by KronisLV »

what-the-grump wrote: post #59
atwood22 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't feel bad. Europeans have a much better work-life balance. Plenty of parental leave. A culture that prioritizes life outside the office. Six weeks of guaranteed vacation that people actually take. Etc. Those things have a price. Namely, when people work less, less innovation happens, which means less productivity growth happens, which means less innovation happens, and so on. I lived in Germany for two years. I…

So we should all be learning Chinese by your logic?

> So we should all be learning Chinese by your logic?

I fail to see how admitting that certain countries have particular qualities that make them less competitive in a given industry and thus make it more economically feasible to use the solutions of other nations, means that they would become dependent on another culture/language.

I mean, exploring new languages and knowing a few polite phrases is generally a good idea, even if you don't find the idea of learning a new language fun/useful personally. That said, it's not like it's required either: people who shop on AliExpress don't need to know Chinese by any means.

Globalization (and thus getting out-competed in certain respects) is kind of inevitable nowadays, though admittedly it would be really cool to see European alternatives to AWS - I mean, Alibaba Cloud and Yandex Cloud seem to prove that it's at least somewhat feasible to explore something like that and companies like Hetzner and Scaleway seem to also prove that the infrastructure aspects are basically covered.

All that's missing is the platform around it, as well as all of the complexity and development that would come with setting out to make something like that.

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#78

Post by trasz »

Denvercoder9 wrote: post #18
wyuenho wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> To be fair, Europe as a whole is 20-30 years behind on most fronts from the state of the art of information technology. This is a gross, unjustified generalization. Sure, there's a lot of old crap around, but that's no different from other parts of the world; but there's also lots of new, modern stuff, with a huge diversity across the continent. Just to give a common counterexample, the SEPA system allows me to tri…

It’s not generalization, it’s mistaking what layman think of technology (websites and apps, 90% of which are useful only for extracting investors cash) with what actually is technology.

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#79

Post by jen20 »

wyuenho wrote: post #9
mordae wrote: post #2

Quoted post unavailable.

Quoted post unavailable.

Given that the US still appears to think that cheques are the height of technology and part of a trivially researchable SSN is proof of identity, I’m not convinced that any sector besides surveillance capitalism is behind.

Re: Why we’ve decided to decommission Gov.uk PaaS

#80

Post by atwood22 »

the_other wrote: post #61
atwood22 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's quite a stretch. Ask any engineer about having that a-ha moment in the shower, or when out for a walk. Downtime is incredibly important for mentally intense work. I agree but I think you’ll find that working usually contributes economic value. Not working usually doesn’t. The key word being usually. if you’re in doubt, just try to record the economic value delivered by your downtime. How many hours are idled…

> I agree but I think you’ll find that working usually contributes economic value. _Some_ people have to be "not working" in order to make use of all the other areas of the economy - shops, transport, leisure centres, clubs, nightlife, the arts, self-care (beauty, massage, counselling etc). That's a fairly large slice of the economic activity in many countries.

Sure, but they can’t spend more than they make, and they can’t make more than they produce. Obviously this might not hold true for every individual, but it holds true in aggregate.
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