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Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

breakingdefense.com

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Re: Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

#181

Post by ebiester »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #158
ebiester wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can build you a team using today's (quality: average B2B startup) programmers and today's methodologies that will write software for 40 years. It will just cost twice as much as the team that iterates quickly. It will cost more because I will spend more money on business analysis up front. I will spend more money writing automated tests. Most importantly, I will maintain my own toolchain and libraries or pay someon…

The trick is to use JS. (Not anything that compiles to it) It will be guaranteed to run in 100 years time. Any other language can die or have incompatibility issues. Over that timespan.

You could use Java or Python and have the same guarantee.

I am not convinced Node will be here in 100 years.

Re: Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

#182

Post by DrNosferatu »

uticus wrote: post #35
DrNosferatu wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the Fallacy of Composition - the economics of a government are not the economics of a grocery store or a household: https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/21/post-crash-...

Sorry, but 'Fallacy of Composition' is just a theory. (Disclaimer: I happen to disagree with it.) Ultimately the way these ideas about economic theory are approached is a lot more philosophical/religious-based (for the Atheists, please read that 'strong belief-based') and a lot less math based than some would be willing to admit. Honestly the math itself is usually statistical, which in turn is a lot more difficult t…

“Just a Theory”?

It’s actually central economic thought. If you disagree, it’s on you to prove otherwise.

Governments can print currency, create taxes - actually inter generational (government bonds). Households cannot.

Economist Mark Blyth explains it quite clear:

http://gesd.free.fr/blythsenate.pdf

Re: Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

#183

Post by ebiester »

docandrew wrote: post #146
ebiester wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can build you a team using today's (quality: average B2B startup) programmers and today's methodologies that will write software for 40 years. It will just cost twice as much as the team that iterates quickly. It will cost more because I will spend more money on business analysis up front. I will spend more money writing automated tests. Most importantly, I will maintain my own toolchain and libraries or pay someon…

I wonder though whether the up-front costs incurred by your team would eventually be outweighed by the long-term costs of the quick team.

I am not convinced that it would. The quick team will get to learn three times as much and adapt to the actual customer need. The cost of change in a system built with stability as a quality attribute will be higher. (As you can see from a system like the old mainframes!)

Re: Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

#184

Post by Matticus_Rex »

wolverine876 wrote: post #47
blindriver wrote: post #34

Why would anyone care about an audit if there are no repercussions?

Why do you say there are no reprocussions? It's a signicant issue in Congress, which writes all of the Department of Defense's checks, oversees them, investigates them, confirms their leaders, and makes laws controlling everything they do.

> It's a signicant issue in Congress

What are you basing that on?

Re: Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

#185

Post by Matticus_Rex »

wolverine876 wrote: post #160
brvsft wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The failed audits have no impact on their budget the following year.

The Pentagon is on track, for the most part, on their auditing project. But what makes you say it doesn't impact their budget?

Six (out of six) years of failed audits, and no repercussions in sight?

Re: Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

#186

Post by klyrs »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #158
ebiester wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can build you a team using today's (quality: average B2B startup) programmers and today's methodologies that will write software for 40 years. It will just cost twice as much as the team that iterates quickly. It will cost more because I will spend more money on business analysis up front. I will spend more money writing automated tests. Most importantly, I will maintain my own toolchain and libraries or pay someon…

The trick is to use JS. (Not anything that compiles to it) It will be guaranteed to run in 100 years time. Any other language can die or have incompatibility issues. Over that timespan.

Brainfuck is the only language we need. It's feature complete and practically guaranteed to go unchanged in the next millenium.

Re: Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

#187

Post by queuebert »

dostick wrote: post #124

60% of 35 trillion is unaccounted for. With this kind of money they can build whole separate world under earth surface. Nothing they can't buy with that money.

That's 420 years of the NIH budget. They lost FOUR CENTURIES worth of groundbreaking medical research. We have really eff-ed up priorities.

In other units that I'm known for, that's 550 Enrons.

Re: Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

#188

Post by TurkishPoptart »

MrMetlHed wrote: post #38

Worked with a guy ten years ago that would obsessively read these reports from the Pentagon. Here's a couple of his stories about the matter: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/pentagon/ and https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-mari... (very old and I apologize for my horrific javascript at the time.) It sounds like nothing has changed. Relevant to this crowd, maybe: "Most of the Cobol code the P…

Is the problem really related to COBOL, or is the fact that this institution is basically unaccountable to taxpayers?

Re: Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

#189

Post by nradov »

marricks wrote: post #37
nradov wrote: post #4

It's important to understand the history here. Failing the audit isn't necessarily due to some sort of fraud or abuse (although there likely are isolated instances). The problem is that for decades Congress never allocated funds to put proper financial controls in place so naturally the accounting systems are a disconnected jumbled mess. When they started annual audits everyone knew they would fail so that was no sur…

Eisenhower warned this would be a thing and here we are, it's a thing. The best we will ever get is the illusion of spending being under control. It's wild, but whenever a big change occurs there's always smart folks who knew what was going to happen and exactly called it out. Usually as a "ok guys be careful cause X could happen" and X inevitably does.

Eisenhower might have warned about it but he apparently never asked Congress to appropriate funds for modernizing the Department of Defense accounting systems. Had he done so they wouldn't be such a mess today.

Re: Pentagon fails audit for sixth year in a row

#190

Post by kube-system »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #158
ebiester wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can build you a team using today's (quality: average B2B startup) programmers and today's methodologies that will write software for 40 years. It will just cost twice as much as the team that iterates quickly. It will cost more because I will spend more money on business analysis up front. I will spend more money writing automated tests. Most importantly, I will maintain my own toolchain and libraries or pay someon…

The trick is to use JS. (Not anything that compiles to it) It will be guaranteed to run in 100 years time. Any other language can die or have incompatibility issues. Over that timespan.

I can't tell if I'm being Poe's Law'd. JS engines are a moving target and have been ever since it was called LiveScript.
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