91–100 of 239 posts
If it's working now, which is seems to be, what's the problem? (OK, I'll concede that $634M is totally and completely insane. But I'm not convinced by the rest of the "bad code" complaints.)
I'll never understand how it's possible that government web sites cost so much, yet usually look like shit, work like shit and are easy to hack (at least in my country). I always get the feeling that companies that win the contracts are somehow related to people responsible for the decision, it's like "Hey, it's not our money, so let's milk the budget as much as possible!".
I have noticed how shocked people are when they hear how much custom software really costs. I don't know what you do for a living, but here's an example:
A family member hears you make software, ask you if you can create a website for his business for a friendly fee. Sure, you think. After reviewing his requirements, and deducting 50% because he's your uncle and you like him and want his business to do well, you give him a quote: 3 months and $10,000. He nearly gets a heart attack. What had he expected then? Well, a copy of windows costs less than $100. How could it be more than that?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is truly an awful scenario. As I stated recently in a comment on this subject, Federal contracting is a Rent Seeking scenario: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_seeking I have a weird role: I work at a company which does tons of Federal contracts, but also has lots of private sector work. I keep my sanity by doing short term consulting with private clients. There are some sharp people working the Federal side, but…
There are some sharp people working the Federal side, but it really is awful. What are you referring to with "it"? The folks at your company who do federal IT work? Government IT employees? Federal IT consulting?
National Public Radio had a good report on 8 October 2013, "Health Exchange Tech Problems Point To A Thornier Issue," http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/10/08/230424... that discusses the broader issue of United States federal government contracting for information technology services. Some reforms are suggested in that story that would help more competent startup companies compete against the establishe…
The difference between established federal contractors and startups disappears if startups get federal contracts. I know a lot of startups would like a better shot at that cash, but if the problem is in the incentives then it's no help to get different people doing the same things. If there are already problems with how federal contracts are awarded, it is hard to imagine that wholesale deregulation is going to resul…
Look at the track record of the company, and use that in factoring in contract awards. Companies that routinely go over budget and over time should be penalized by having a reduced chance of getting contracts in the first place. That's one thing that would help level the playing field a bit.
Of course, what would happen is those larger companies would create related spin-offs that are technically not related, and they'd have 'fresh' stats to compete with, and the cycle would start over again, probably.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is truly an awful scenario. As I stated recently in a comment on this subject, Federal contracting is a Rent Seeking scenario: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_seeking I have a weird role: I work at a company which does tons of Federal contracts, but also has lots of private sector work. I keep my sanity by doing short term consulting with private clients. There are some sharp people working the Federal side, but…
There are some sharp people working the Federal side, but it really is awful. What are you referring to with "it"? The folks at your company who do federal IT work? Government IT employees? Federal IT consulting?
Been there, done that. Never again.
Federal government consulting firms hire warm bodies at the lowest price possible. They are the people who employ the college students from Java shops (because a degree is a must, of course) who barely learn Java and then grow up to never touch another programming language in their life. Knowing anything from MS or Oracle is double plus good for your resume. You're totally replaceable to them and treated accordingly. Anyone competent or specialized is generally hired as a subcontractor to the main contractor and not by the government itself.
Government IT employees are nigh-unfireable and they know it. They're about 50% people who've transferred in from other Government positions because they know it's easy or they're former contractors who join the government so they have a stable job. The government managers who vet your deliverables and the upper managers who make contract decisions, well, they're just the previous technically incompetent people who've stuck around long enough to get promoted up.
As the individual contractor, contracts are usually 1-3 years so you're constantly always up for being laid off or moved to a different contract. Your company is notoriously stingy, but that's mostly because they're not paying you for competitive skills, they're paying you because butts-in-seats means they get their lucrative contract rate that's at least 4x more than they're paying you. Since only behemoths of companies can even afford to try to land federal contracts, your employer has a large amount of corporate bureaucracy you have to deal with and that sucks... then you're sent to a government facility to work, where you get to deal with government bureaucracy on top of your internal crap too. As a contractor, between both organizations you'll get to take hours upon hours of totally useless 'computer safety, ethics and public responsibility trainings' which are mostly written so 4 year olds can understand them.
The government technology you work with is generally 5-10 years behind the curve if they even pretend to maintain something. As late as 2010 I was working on a J2EE app trying to migrate it to Java 5. It was stored in Visual Source Safe 6, and their development shop was totally crippled by what was essentially "God objects" and file locking. Too many developers, too many chokepoints in code. I've spent more than 1 day of my life walking around a building asking if people really needed a certain file locked. Oh, and many government employees worked 9-40 compressed schedules and are out on Mondays or Fridays, so you'd better not need to write to a file except on Tues-Thursdays, even if it is critical to meeting a deliverable deadline.
For all of you that didn't know, this project was never put out for bid with an RFP. It was sole-sourced to CGI Federal without any competitive bids. "Federal health officials have not yet explained why CGI was given the contract or why it was awarded on a sole-source basis." http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/some-say-h... [Edit to add source]
Heck, push it to all your favorite news outlets. There's no reason why one obscure company should get the contract without viable competitors.
There are a lot of interesting things to say about a $634M website that didn’t work when it should have, but what pops out at me here is the description of “poorly written code.” This article even links directly to some of the code, which A) looks fine? and B) is like “Yeah, the problem wasn’t with procurement regulations or clear requirements or public-private cronyism or managerial competence, it was that damn pers…
We've reached ... some sort of level when Drudge includes a highest level (most prominent on the page, at the very top left) link to a page of its Javascript: https://www.healthcare.gov/marketplace/global/en_US/registra... It's titled "Crazzzzzzzy code..."
Or view StackOverflow on multiline text in JavaScript?
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/805107/creating-multiline...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How about the CBS video linked above? Or the links below? Or the countless other media accounts of the launch being a "complete disaster"? Or all the comments on this very page of HNers not being able to use the site? Not even the administration's biggest defenders are trying to spin this as a successful launch. Are you really implying the media as a whole is biased against Obama? http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505269_1…
I don't think anyone's denying that this launch is a failure. It's clear as day. josefresco's point, though, seemed to be that this particular quote could easily have been politically motivated. None of the articles you link restate that 'single digits' claim. One of them even states the number could be upwards of 20M. Just saying: take the 'single digits' claim with a grain of salt. You don't need to buy every ridic…
Also, regarding the 20 million figure, here's the quote:
Seven percent of Americans report that somebody in their household has tried to sign up for insurance through the health care exchanges, according to an AP-GfK poll. While that's a small percentage, it could represent more than 20 million people.
As many as 20 million "tried to" sign up, based on their extrapolation of some polling data.
The last I heard, no media outlet has been able to find a single successful sign up to interview, and they are definitely looking for one.
The CBS video also claims there have been only "a handful" of sign ups, and it's getting reported in lots of other places. It could be inaccurate, but these are mainstream outlets reporting this, not Breitbart or Drudge. The administration is refusing to release sign up numbers, which certainly doesn't look good.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are some sharp people working the Federal side, but it really is awful. What are you referring to with "it"? The folks at your company who do federal IT work? Government IT employees? Federal IT consulting?
I read "it" as a pronoun, not as "information technology"
For all of you that didn't know, this project was never put out for bid with an RFP. It was sole-sourced to CGI Federal without any competitive bids. "Federal health officials have not yet explained why CGI was given the contract or why it was awarded on a sole-source basis." http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/some-say-h... [Edit to add source]