6 ms·

I'd wager there were other complexities purely from the govt side. When healthcare.gov launched and crashed, it was uncovered that the final definition of the l

I'd wager there were other complexities purely from the govt side. When healthcare.gov launched and crashed, it was uncovered that the final definition of the laws and rules were still coming weeks before the launch and had changed dozens of times throughout. From a purely technical perspective, there's no way to know if something "works" if it hasn't been defined or - worse! - is constantly being redefined on the fly.

mrweasel 10y ago
>I'd wager there were other complexities purely from the govt side. That is true for oh so many government IT projects. The part that I still struggle to comprehend is "Why on earth aren't the IT companies, like IBM, telling governments that what they're asking isn't actually possible?" The Danish government have an insane amount of failed IT projects. Most of them fails do to the complexity of laws, rules and requirements. We even know that they'll fail before they even start. Most good developers are able to predict this with great accuracy. So why aren't IBM and other telling governments that what they're asking isn't possible? My best guess: Because their lawyers will ensure that they're paid anyway, and because they have absolutely no pride in their work. You can't hurt the reputation of IBM, or at least it won't matter, because their competitors have equally poor reputation, and no one else is going to bid on the jobs they take on.
- pyvpx 10y ago
  IBM is best at writing iron clad contracts that mean precisely that -- no matter the outcome, they get paid.
  - scholia 10y ago
    IBM: You can buy better, but you can't pay more.
    - neurotixz 10y ago
      Incredible Billing Machine
      - scholia 10y ago
        We must have had a dozen of these in the 1980s. An internal IBM one was I've Been Moved. Others I can still remember include Install Bigger Memories, It's Better Manually, Itty Bitty Machines, and Idiotic Bumbling Morons....
    - dozzie 10y ago
      Of course you can pay more. -- Oracle
  - pkaye 10y ago
    Until eventually their past customers get smart and stop working with them. Because of lowest bid contracts, the gov't will be an exception unfortunately.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > Because of lowest bid contracts, the gov't will be an exception unfortunately. The problem is not lowest bid (which few government contracts are any more, AFAIK), but the fact that government contracting is its own domain of expertise (actually, often a separate domain for each state plus the federal government, and even many local governments) separate from the kind of work actually being contracted for, and there are in any field a very small number of players (compared to the field as a whole) that have developed expertise in the "winning government contracts" domain (and, in IT, IBM is one of them, at essentially every level of government.)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
ethbro 10y ago
As someone who has worked with the US insurance industry, you cannot imagine the amount of crap they have to put up with from Congress. Last minute changes to a law with a looming implementation deadline so that someone can score political points = everyone is non-compliant for some period You can't rewrite 30-year old COBOL-backed business processes overnight.

mrweasel 10y ago

>I'd wager there were other complexities purely from the govt side. That is true for oh so many government IT projects. The part that I still struggle to comprehend is "Why on earth aren't the IT companies, like IBM, telling governments that what they're asking isn't actually possible?" The Danish government have an insane amount of failed IT projects. Most of them fails do to the complexity of laws, rules and requirements. We even know that they'll fail before they even start. Most good developers are able to predict this with great accuracy. So why aren't IBM and other telling governments that what they're asking isn't possible? My best guess: Because their lawyers will ensure that they're paid anyway, and because they have absolutely no pride in their work. You can't hurt the reputation of IBM, or at least it won't matter, because their competitors have equally poor reputation, and no one else is going to bid on the jobs they take on.

pyvpx 10y ago
IBM is best at writing iron clad contracts that mean precisely that -- no matter the outcome, they get paid.
- scholia 10y ago
  IBM: You can buy better, but you can't pay more.
  - neurotixz 10y ago
    Incredible Billing Machine
    - scholia 10y ago
      We must have had a dozen of these in the 1980s. An internal IBM one was I've Been Moved. Others I can still remember include Install Bigger Memories, It's Better Manually, Itty Bitty Machines, and Idiotic Bumbling Morons....
  - dozzie 10y ago
    Of course you can pay more. -- Oracle
- pkaye 10y ago
  Until eventually their past customers get smart and stop working with them. Because of lowest bid contracts, the gov't will be an exception unfortunately.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Because of lowest bid contracts, the gov't will be an exception unfortunately. The problem is not lowest bid (which few government contracts are any more, AFAIK), but the fact that government contracting is its own domain of expertise (actually, often a separate domain for each state plus the federal government, and even many local governments) separate from the kind of work actually being contracted for, and there are in any field a very small number of players (compared to the field as a whole) that have developed expertise in the "winning government contracts" domain (and, in IT, IBM is one of them, at essentially every level of government.)
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

ethbro 10y ago

As someone who has worked with the US insurance industry, you cannot imagine the amount of crap they have to put up with from Congress. Last minute changes to a law with a looming implementation deadline so that someone can score political points = everyone is non-compliant for some period You can't rewrite 30-year old COBOL-backed business processes overnight.