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Obama's Trauma Team: Inside the Nightmare Launch of HealthCare.Gov

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Re: Obama's Trauma Team: Inside the Nightmare Launch of HealthCare.Gov

#31

Post by dragontamer »

jobu wrote: post #18

Wow! They weren't even caching database calls: HealthCare.gov had been constructed so that every time a user had to get information from the website's vast database, the website had to make what's called a query into that database. Well-constructed, high-volume sites, especially e-commerce sites, will instead store or assemble the most frequently accessed information in a layer above the entire database, called a cac…

http://tucsoncitizen.com/morgue/2009/05/07/115945-mexico-s-w...

Depends on what industry you work in. A Cache may look more like a giant pile of weapons as opposed to some memory in a computer.

Re: Obama's Trauma Team: Inside the Nightmare Launch of HealthCare.Gov

#32

Post by saraid216 »

JonFish85 wrote: post #26
pdeuchler wrote: post #21

>> "It is also a story of an Obama Administration obsessed with health care reform policy but above the nitty-gritty of implementing it. No one in the White House meetings leading up to the launch had any idea whether the technology worked." I used to be this guy. The guy with the lofty ideas, but who thought the implementation was "beneath me". The guy who would sit around, waxing poetic about various features, user…

>It hit me then that while ideas may have value, the implementation usurps all of it. An idea alone is powerful, but once it's implemented the idea becomes worthless. You need both. Implementation people aren't all that useful without a vision. A vision isn't all that useful without implementation. It's a symbiotic relationship. Steve Jobs without a Steve Wozniak probably wouldn't have been as successful. Steve Wozni…

> You need both. Implementation people aren't all that useful without a vision. A vision isn't all that useful without implementation. It's a symbiotic relationship.

37signals' take on this was the best one I've seen (paraphrased):

Ideas are a multiplier. If your execution is good, a good idea will multiply that. If your execution is minimal, a good idea will scrape by. If your execution is abyssal, a good idea will make it worse.

I'd link the actual page in the book, but I have always had trouble finding it.

Re: Obama's Trauma Team: Inside the Nightmare Launch of HealthCare.Gov

#35

Post by odonnellryan »

pdeuchler wrote: post #21

>> "It is also a story of an Obama Administration obsessed with health care reform policy but above the nitty-gritty of implementing it. No one in the White House meetings leading up to the launch had any idea whether the technology worked." I used to be this guy. The guy with the lofty ideas, but who thought the implementation was "beneath me". The guy who would sit around, waxing poetic about various features, user…

That's interesting, what was the software?

Re: Obama's Trauma Team: Inside the Nightmare Launch of HealthCare.Gov

#38

Post by brandonb »

I've been working on healthcare.gov for the last few months alongside a bunch of other Google, Facebook, and Y Combinator alums.

I'll always remember what Mikey told us in December, after the site was back up, could handle a non-trivial amount of traffic, and people who wanted health insurance could finally get it:

"1 in 1000 uninsured people die each year. It's not an exaggeration to say that due to the work we're doing here, 5,000-10,000 people will live to see the end of 2014. You should be proud of what you've done, but we should also all be grateful to have this opportunity."

We're all grateful to be here, but there's a hell of a lot more work to be done.

If any of you out there are an amazing software engineer or SRE, and want to help make our government work better, please shoot me an email: brandon@hcgov.us!

Re: Obama's Trauma Team: Inside the Nightmare Launch of HealthCare.Gov

#39

Post by AutoCorrect »

pdeuchler wrote: post #21

>> "It is also a story of an Obama Administration obsessed with health care reform policy but above the nitty-gritty of implementing it. No one in the White House meetings leading up to the launch had any idea whether the technology worked." I used to be this guy. The guy with the lofty ideas, but who thought the implementation was "beneath me". The guy who would sit around, waxing poetic about various features, user…

No, an idea is worthless UNTIL it is implemented.

Re: Obama's Trauma Team: Inside the Nightmare Launch of HealthCare.Gov

#40

Post by ConceptJunkie »

jobu wrote: post #18

Wow! They weren't even caching database calls: HealthCare.gov had been constructed so that every time a user had to get information from the website's vast database, the website had to make what's called a query into that database. Well-constructed, high-volume sites, especially e-commerce sites, will instead store or assemble the most frequently accessed information in a layer above the entire database, called a cac…

I think you are overestimating the understanding of the average magazine reader. I'm not trying to insult magazine readers (even though it is "Time" we are talking about). Computers are still "black boxes" to most people, and there's nothing wrong with that. The fact that they are is a testament to designers, engineers and developers doing their jobs well.

Kudos to your Mom, who I'm guessing knows what a browser cache is from talking with you, but this detail is technical enough that a quick explanation is in order.

This definition is concise and descriptive and isn't long enough to derail the gist of what the article is talking about.

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