your tax dollas at work[W:42]

[sawyerloggingon]

Re: your tax dollas at work

This was done by the private sector, CGI. A major IT player. :roll:

Part of it yes and they say the gov kept changing specs on them so often they couldn't possibly keep up.

 

[sawyerloggingon]

Re: your tax dollas at work

It is all relative. There is no website out there where one of its demands is to have 100s of millions of users on day one, and link to multiple different databases across a country that was made by different programmers and companies and require all this to be secure and safe.

As I said, complexity costs money and time. Is 3 years a lot of time? Frankly no, not considering the complexity involved.

Companies like Amazon, Google, Apple and so on made their websites over time, with plenty of user input and mistakes and linked their own databases.. databases they created with software and programming they often created or at least know how it was made... and all this cost many many many millions of over years.

Look at it this way.

Apple had over a year to redo their mobile operating system. They released it a few weeks ago and it was full of bugs. They had the ability to beta test it among many willing users and it still has massive amount of bugs that make devices unusable in many cases. And that was a program that Apple had full control over... the makers of this website did not have full control of how it works... they had to adapt systems to each other.

Listen I am not going to defend the programmers of the site on the result they produced because I personally believe most software designers are idiots who cant make user friendly sites and programs if their lives depended on it, but I am saying that you have to take into consideration what they had to contend with.

What most people are doing is seeing the 650 million dollar number and 3 year time line and from that say "omfgs you got to be kidding what a failure" without considering the work required to get such a site up and running.

And was it not a private contractor that did this website?

Bugs are to be expected but this site is beyond bugs, it just doesn't work.

 

[sawyerloggingon]

Re: your tax dollas at work

So, according to you, the government's website was an impossibility. This is perhaps why the Obama administration was telling everyone that things were fine leading up to October 1st and it was going to be a great success. Here's a tip - your "beta testing" could be done this whole year while citizens are granted the same one year grace/waiver period as businesses were given. Better yet, if you want to keep on track with the government time lines - TEST THE DAMN THING OVER THE PAST 3 PLUS YEARS YOU'VE HAD TO DESIGN IT.

When did America become filled with spineless, liberal wimps who apologize non-stop for failure?[/QUOTE]

I would take great offense to that if it were not so true.

 

[Mycroft]

Re: your tax dollas at work

Building the website is easy and takes little time and money.. linking the website to various databases across the country, of which most are totally different from each other... THAT is hard and time consuming. And considering there is no beta testing possible to iron out the bugs, well good luck in having a perfect functioning website on day one.

Speaking of beta testing...

1. There WAS beta testing. Health Care Website Fails Despite Amish Beta Success | ScrappleFace

2. If there wasn't beta testing, then whoever developed this Exchange stuff are idiots and don't deserve a nickle of what they were paid.

In my opinion, this Oct. 1 roll-out WAS the beta test...except nobody told the public. They let the public think it was all good to go. Most game developers don't dare to do something like that. They have a clearly announced open beta period some time before rolling out their game. Of course, the government doesn't have to worry about things like customer satisfaction so they don't care if they lie to the public.

 

[Mycroft]

Re: your tax dollas at work

Have YOU coded any programs? Did the games you played get hit with 833 new players a minute? You are clueless...

I've never written legislation like Obamacare...that doesn't mean I can't see that it's a piece of ****.

btw, I HAVE coded programs.

 

[PeteEU]

Re: your tax dollas at work

Speaking of beta testing...

1. There WAS beta testing. Health Care Website Fails Despite Amish Beta Success | ScrappleFace

That is at best a closed alpha test lol.

2. If there wasn't beta testing, then whoever developed this Exchange stuff are idiots and don't deserve a nickle of what they were paid.

How would you beta test such a thing? Sure testing a website is easy, but testing that every database in every scenario connects correctly.. now that is considerably harder.

In my opinion, this Oct. 1 roll-out WAS the beta test...except nobody told the public. They let the public think it was all good to go. Most game developers don't dare to do something like that. They have a clearly announced open beta period some time before rolling out their game. Of course, the government doesn't have to worry about things like customer satisfaction so they don't care if they lie to the public.

Oh I dont disagree at all.

But my point is still.. how on earth can you beta test a website connecting to multiple databases with sensitive information and beta test a massive load also?

I have been a beta tester for many games and there is always problems despite the beta testing. Look at Simcity 5. Beta tested a lot, and yet because of the popularity the launch was horrible. Features were disabled, because linking to these databases caused game problems and server problems. Or the new GTA 5 online.. also plagued by problems despite being beta tested up the wazzoo.

People expect that in this day an age making a website is easy and it will work always. It is not so, and never has been.

Lets look at the up time of popular services. Google had a crash just this week that effected its services. Apple has had massive problems with it services like iCloud that is often down. How about Blackberry and its services? Or Microsoft and its services going down... You dont read about them in the same way, but they do happen and there are problems with login's and other issues that plague them all at one time or another.

 

[notquiteright]

Re: your tax dollas at work

Part of it yes and they say the gov kept changing specs on them so often they couldn't possibly keep up.

Again your ignorance of how this works is amazing. (nevermind your original statement was way off base) There is a constant dribble of changes, updates, new requirements and 'legal requirements'. There are constant pulls and pushes in the design as well as limitations in what the programs can do. You can write up a wish list and have CGI tell you it can't be done so back to the drawing board.

I'll bet you a shiny nickel the 'government' side also was mainly private sector contractors brought in for the project. Few IT shops keep a reserve of permanent employees on hand for major upgrades or new programs, the Perms are knee deep in just keeping the system up and running.

The process is the same in the private sector, Agilent, Northrup/Grumman, and QVC, way too many fingers in the pie and all ready to point to the others as the problem.

 

[Mycroft]

Re: your tax dollas at work

That is at best a closed alpha test lol.



How would you beta test such a thing? Sure testing a website is easy, but testing that every database in every scenario connects correctly.. now that is considerably harder.



Oh I dont disagree at all.

But my point is still.. how on earth can you beta test a website connecting to multiple databases with sensitive information and beta test a massive load also?

I have been a beta tester for many games and there is always problems despite the beta testing. Look at Simcity 5. Beta tested a lot, and yet because of the popularity the launch was horrible. Features were disabled, because linking to these databases caused game problems and server problems. Or the new GTA 5 online.. also plagued by problems despite being beta tested up the wazzoo.

People expect that in this day an age making a website is easy and it will work always. It is not so, and never has been.

Lets look at the up time of popular services. Google had a crash just this week that effected its services. Apple has had massive problems with it services like iCloud that is often down. How about Blackberry and its services? Or Microsoft and its services going down... You dont read about them in the same way, but they do happen and there are problems with login's and other issues that plague them all at one time or another.

If the Obama administration had just come out and said they won't be able to meet their Oct 1 roll-out date...if they had said that they would be beta testing their system on Oct 1...they wouldn't be having the public relations problems they are having right now. This is just another example of their incompetence...and the incompetence of whoever they hired to build this monstrosity.

Of course, that would mean that the Obama administration would have to admit failure...that is something they just can't bring themselves to do.

 

[PeteEU]

Re: your tax dollas at work

If the Obama administration had just come out and said they won't be able to meet their Oct 1 roll-out date...if they had said that they would be beta testing their system on Oct 1...they wouldn't be having the public relations problems they are having right now. This is just another example of their incompetence...and the incompetence of whoever they hired to build this monstrosity.

Of course, that would mean that the Obama administration would have to admit failure...that is something they just can't bring themselves to do.

I agree.. I have always had the attitude.. rather delay a program/game/site than release a bugged POS. Problem is that business interests or in this case political interests often take precedence over logic.

But to be fair.. since when has a politician ever admitted failure? I mean the GOP still cant admit that Bush jr was a mistake.. just saying.

 

[Mycroft]

Re: your tax dollas at work

I agree.. I have always had the attitude.. rather delay a program/game/site than release a bugged POS. Problem is that business interests or in this case political interests often take precedence over logic.

But to be fair.. since when has a politician ever admitted failure? I mean the GOP still cant admit that Bush jr was a mistake.. just saying.

It's hard to be fair when one is forking over $634 million dollars for a failure.

 

[notquiteright]

Re: your tax dollas at work

I've never written legislation like Obamacare...that doesn't mean I can't see that it's a piece of ****.

btw, I HAVE coded programs.

YOU HAVE??!! Then why the 'I have played games online' as your knowledge base? I can tell you one thing, you never have been knee deep in a major corporate roll-out, least ways not as much more than a junior programmer. There is a HUGE difference between a mom and pop store's program and a major corporation with off site offices in different states/countries.

You are clueless on what code is in the website and where the problems lie. Staying at a Holiday Inn doesn't work in this case...

 

[Mycroft]

Re: your tax dollas at work

YOU HAVE??!! Then why the 'I have played games online' as your knowledge base? I can tell you one thing, you never have been knee deep in a major corporate roll-out, least ways not as much more than a junior programmer. There is a HUGE difference between a mom and pop store's program and a major corporation with off site offices in different states/countries.

You are clueless on what code is in the website and where the problems lie. Staying at a Holiday Inn doesn't work in this case...

LOL!!!

Shrug...I haven't ever earned $634 million dollars for developing a failure, either. Again, my personal experience doesn't preclude me from recognizing a failure when I see one.

 

[joG]

Re: your tax dollas at work

So they can hack our emails, watch what we are doing almost 24/7 but not set up a website?

I think you might be being somewhat too optimistic.

 

[Mason66]

Re: your tax dollas at work

Did Google start out with 833 new hits a minute when it first rolled out??? Hail no! :roll:

I'll give the ill-informed an idea of the cost of such things.

Right after the Millennium scare where anyone who could spell 'IT' got a job fixing millions of lines of code for the 2000 date, Agilent split from HP. Most of ya don't know Agilent, their biggest seller was that self contained Defib machine you see on airlines. So they decide to do away with the HP machine and software (why is a very good question) They wanted to combine all existing systems into one 'enterprise' system for their many over seas companies. (sounds like many IT commercials doesn't it)

They spent 3 years at 4 MILLION a month until the project was canned. In one day they fired 240 developers at project termination. 6 BAs were kept. And that was just the contractors, not permanent employees assigned to the project.

That was the private sector. That was literally a warehouse full of techno-wienies having at it.

This isn't a case of 'shoddy workmanship that happens all the time'- it is like having to hand file each gear and clog of a watch and many parts are made by someone else someplace else and then handed to you to 'make fit'.

Please don't speak like you are the only person in the world that knows this business.

Did Google think they would have 833 hits aminute? No

Did the ACA website know they would? Yes

You are trying to make excuses for the weak coding and it is not working.

If 635 million can't buy a working website, then the country is lost.

 

[notquiteright]

Re: your tax dollas at work

LOL!!!

Shrug...I haven't ever earned $634 million dollars for developing a failure, either. Again, my personal experience doesn't preclude me from recognizing a failure when I see one.

Laughing, so you admit you really have no experience in making money as a programmer, much less a developer or analyst, have NO CLUE what it takes to bring more than a few lines of code into production- wait you have no production experience!

The 'I played games online' is the wienie equiv of 'I stayed at a Holiday Inn last night.' :lamo

I do note those who are ranting over this massive roll-out have the least amount of experience in such things and the most political axe to grind over the ACA. :roll:

 

[notquiteright]

Re: your tax dollas at work

Please don't speak like you are the only person in the world that knows this business. Did Google think they would have 833 hits aminute? No Did the ACA website know they would? Yes You are trying to make excuses for the weak coding and it is not working. If 635 million can't buy a working website, then the country is lost.

Please don't type like you have a clue. I don't have to be the only one who knows these things, but it is very obvious I know a mini-frame's worth more than those who detract.

The ACA website that got 833 hits a minute was just one state's worth. I'd say the developers could not run realistic Beta tests to that level simply because the ability to gather and coordinate the roughly 50,000 new accounts to use the server in one hour is lacking. Google couldn't do that and Google didn't launch defect free, hell Apple phones roll out with numerous defects each and every time.

To give you an idea of what major corporations do as a Beta test-

They have existing customer records they run parrall to the real records. First they pull 3 to 4000 records and watch their transactions- hardly more than 25% are active in the test period. In a few days 10,000 accounts are pulled into the Beta test and watched for a few days, and then more and more are added.

As far as I know NO Beta test has gone a week without being stopped and the defects worked on.

To repeat myself because yes my experience in this is far beyond yours- Agilent spent 4 million a month for 3 years before stopping the upgrade project back when it split off of HP. The size of this project was staggering- over 200 developers were let go in one day. 144 million without a damn thing to show for it. :doh

Even long existing programs has defects that the corporations have to live with for years. Northrup/Grumman's now closed Titusville FL, HP3000 worked for the Cape and Beth Page NY, facilities. At night it ran huge update programs for billing. The end of month runs quite often aborted. As long and hard as the IT teams would work on the defect they couldn't figure out why, they just accepted it and would manually restart the program.

The roll out could have been better, could have been worse. The fact is those who are howling over it are clueless on how massive the undertaking is.

Ask QVC how simple a roll-out can be.... :roll:

 

[Kal'Stang]

Re: your tax dollas at work

Moderator's Warning:

Please remember to address the POSTS and NOT the Poster. I will be keeping an eye on this thread......

 

[Diogenes]

Re: your tax dollas at work

So they can hack our emails, watch what we are doing almost 24/7 but not set up a website?

Exactly. This fiasco is a good example of the difference between hacking and setting up a website that actually works.

 

[Diogenes]

Re: your tax dollas at work

Stop being an apologist for incompetence. Your federal government robs you and spends upwards of $3 trillion a year - grow some balls and demand that they be even slightly capable of opening a paper bag. The law was passed and signed by the President in March 2010 - THREE AND A HALF YEARS AGO!! What the **** have they been doing in that time to get this website up and operational? DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY OR YOU GET NONE.

Very well said! :applaud

 

[Diogenes]

Re: your tax dollas at work

This isn't a case of 'shoddy workmanship that happens all the time'- it is like having to hand file each gear and clog of a watch and many parts are made by someone else someplace else and then handed to you to 'make fit'.

The "shoddy workmanship" is largely in the decision to inflict this failure on the public before it is ready, like trying to fly the airplane before you're done building it. So now the feds are threatening to fine individuals if they don't buy a product from a website that doesn't work... :doh :roll:

 

[Diogenes]

Re: your tax dollas at work

This was done by the private sector, CGI. A major IT player. :roll:

Are you claiming that excuses the failure? :roll:

 

[notquiteright]

Re: your tax dollas at work

The "shoddy workmanship" is largely in the decision to inflict this failure on the public before it is ready, like trying to fly the airplane before you're done building it. So now the feds are threatening to fine individuals if they don't buy a product from a website that doesn't work... :doh :roll:

Sir, I would submit your opinion is based far more on highly partisan politics rather than any understanding of how major IT roll-outs work. For one the penalty phase doesn't kick in for a few months, plenty of time to fix the defects, the massive surge of lookie loos to wander off and those serious about getting their insurance from the website will. Far more like not building enough planes for everyone wanting a ride. (and having many who don't want on board who are clogging up the ticket counters.)

This website launch is getting all the attention and all the trash talk because of it's highly political nature. Was Agilent's failed 3 year, 144 million dollar failure to install an Enterprise system splashed all over the Sunday talk shows? Did Forbes devote page after page to this and speculate on what the failure says about Agilent's future and stock price? Did the Sunday talk shows speculate on what this massive failure in the IT world would do to the industry?

Does Maria Barlato---- oh whoever you spell big business's cheerleader's name, 'investigate' the success rate of major IT contract upgrades, overhauls, migrations, so-called 'Enterprise' Systems- how many are on time, under budget, major defect free on roll-out?

Nawwww, because facts get in the way of good theater of the absurd... :2wave: