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Tyler Technologies acknowledged in a statement that the upgrade process had been “challenging” - but said poor training was to blame for bad inputting of data a

by panic 10y ago

Tyler Technologies acknowledged in a statement that the upgrade process had been “challenging” - but said poor training was to blame for bad inputting of data and integration with third-party applications that often introduce glitches into the system. People writing software need to take responsibility for how the software is used, especially when it can impact people's lives to this degree. You can't just blame third party software or the people entering data.

CmdrSprinkles 10y ago
Except, what is the threshold? Are MS responsible for every time a 20 year old machine running windows 98 because nothing else can run the data collection software crashes? Should I give Linus a ring every time my aunt breaks her laptop that I installed Mint on? Assuming the software itself has no meaningful or significant bugs (a hard thing to prove), it likely IS a problem of training. I know that my travel request time went from 5 minutes to closer to an hour for the first few times I used it after we switched to a new system. And while the admins were trained properly, the rest of us just were told "Ask an admin if you need help" Similarly, it might actually BE the third party systems. I know that every time we upgrade part of our infrastructure we have to deal with the hell of components that should, but don't, interface well. And as often as I scream profanities and talk about how much I hate a certain vendor, I also know it isn't their responsibility to ensure that their software works with a different vendor's (I do yell at our procurement people though since they should make it so). Do I think Tyler Tech should try to help? Of course, this is bad PR. And if they were the ones providing the training, address what went wrong and update the training and possibly GUI to resolve this. But so long as they met the requirements of the contract, I see no reason they should be held responsible or penalized.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
noir_lord 10y ago
> People writing software need to take responsibility for how the software is used There is an old joke that it's almost impossible to get someone to understand a problem that would result in a threat to their livliehood. I don't think people need to "take responsibility" I think organisations need to be made to take responsibility. In the UK when you purchase a physical good from the retailer the warranty for that good is between you and the retailer, the retailer then has to deal with problems up the line from suppliers, it's not perfect but it's workable. I think software should be the same, I think if I pay Foo for a system then Foo should be responsible for the system even if it's made of parts from Bar, Fizz and Buzz, if Foo has an issue with Fizz they need to take it up with Fizz. There is so much crap software out there in every field and the acceleration towards a world run on software continues.
- acbabis 10y ago
  I'm not saying it's not a good idea, but that system's gonna be really tough on the software industry. Consider what would happen when a famous third-party API has security flaw. Most third-party libraries' licenses have an "as-is" clause and even mature third-party software has exploits sometimes (e.g. Java applets). If you wanted to use a library in a project, you would have to - a) read the entire thing to see if you can find any bugs that the devs missed, or - b) roll your own solution which will probably have even more bugs, or - c) find an equivalent library that has a paid version without the "as-is" clause. Imagine paying a monthly subscription fee just so you can offset the liability when Angular has a security hole. This would run a lot of small shops out of business.
  - noir_lord 10y ago
    I own one of those small shops so I'm not unsympathetic but few other industries get away with 'as-is' disclaimers, Can you imagine it in the automotive,aeronautical, transport etc? The present system is a pass the parcel of blame with no one taking any responsibility, tonnes of shit, insecure systems written and designed poorly. Eventually something will give.
    - jonnathanson 10y ago
      "Can you imagine it in the automotive,aeronautical, transport etc?" This. This is the most important point I've read so far. The key word here is "imagine." I think even we, as an industry, don't quite grok the degree to which software truly has eaten the world -- and the degree to which it now is every bit as important, as life-or-death, as things like cars, airplane travel, or even medicine. We hold these goods to certain standards because we deem them extremely critical -- too important to be left to the de facto standards set by the operation of a wild-west market. It's about time the notion of standards-free software shocked people as much as the notion of standards-free engineering in any other systemically critical industry. I'd prefer self-established standards set by the industry to government-imposed standards set by lay bureaucrats. But the latter is coming eventually if the former never does.
  - 10y ago
dkarl 10y ago
I think that's a bit harsh without knowing whether the software vendor was allowed to be effectively involved in the training and integration efforts. Software like this depends on lots of processes around the rollout and usage being properly designed and executed, and the fact that the software is being used successfully in many places suggests that the vendor knows how to deploy the software safely. Whether they were complicit in not doing so in the case of Alameda County is the important question. Maybe the county ran out of money at the last minute and the vendor couldn't stop them from cutting corners on the rollout. Maybe the vendor doesn't think it's good customer relations to go public with the fact that they told the county over and over again that they were creating risks of errors like this. Maybe they even had stipulations in their contract to stop improper integrations from happening and the government ignored them or found a way around them. Hopefully there will be an investigation and the people will find out who screwed up and why so they can be held accountable. It's tempting to say that everyone involved is "responsible" in some vague way, but that lets people off too easy. If everyone is guilty, then no one is guilty.
nkrisc 10y ago
I agree that you can't blame the software but disagree with who should be liable. The entity using the software needs to be liable (in this case either the State or the courts). They are responsible for implementing and using the the software thus ought to be liable for any mistakes it makes, whether user error or software bug. If they then want to take that up with the creator of the software, that's between them.
kafkaesq 10y ago
You can't just blame third party software or the people entering data. Indeed, this excuse just doesn't pass the smell test. Responsible vendors do (and not only "do", they advocate and insist on) practices like integration testing, and graduated rollouts (so that when process glitches like these inevitably slip through, they're caught when they affect 1 or 2 people -- not 50). Never do they blame "bad inputting of data."

by panic 10y ago

CmdrSprinkles 10y ago

Except, what is the threshold? Are MS responsible for every time a 20 year old machine running windows 98 because nothing else can run the data collection software crashes? Should I give Linus a ring every time my aunt breaks her laptop that I installed Mint on? Assuming the software itself has no meaningful or significant bugs (a hard thing to prove), it likely IS a problem of training. I know that my travel request time went from 5 minutes to closer to an hour for the first few times I used it after we switched to a new system. And while the admins were trained properly, the rest of us just were told "Ask an admin if you need help" Similarly, it might actually BE the third party systems. I know that every time we upgrade part of our infrastructure we have to deal with the hell of components that should, but don't, interface well. And as often as I scream profanities and talk about how much I hate a certain vendor, I also know it isn't their responsibility to ensure that their software works with a different vendor's (I do yell at our procurement people though since they should make it so). Do I think Tyler Tech should try to help? Of course, this is bad PR. And if they were the ones providing the training, address what went wrong and update the training and possibly GUI to resolve this. But so long as they met the requirements of the contract, I see no reason they should be held responsible or penalized.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

noir_lord 10y ago

> People writing software need to take responsibility for how the software is used There is an old joke that it's almost impossible to get someone to understand a problem that would result in a threat to their livliehood. I don't think people need to "take responsibility" I think organisations need to be made to take responsibility. In the UK when you purchase a physical good from the retailer the warranty for that good is between you and the retailer, the retailer then has to deal with problems up the line from suppliers, it's not perfect but it's workable. I think software should be the same, I think if I pay Foo for a system then Foo should be responsible for the system even if it's made of parts from Bar, Fizz and Buzz, if Foo has an issue with Fizz they need to take it up with Fizz. There is so much crap software out there in every field and the acceleration towards a world run on software continues.

acbabis 10y ago
I'm not saying it's not a good idea, but that system's gonna be really tough on the software industry. Consider what would happen when a famous third-party API has security flaw. Most third-party libraries' licenses have an "as-is" clause and even mature third-party software has exploits sometimes (e.g. Java applets). If you wanted to use a library in a project, you would have to - a) read the entire thing to see if you can find any bugs that the devs missed, or - b) roll your own solution which will probably have even more bugs, or - c) find an equivalent library that has a paid version without the "as-is" clause. Imagine paying a monthly subscription fee just so you can offset the liability when Angular has a security hole. This would run a lot of small shops out of business.
- noir_lord 10y ago
  I own one of those small shops so I'm not unsympathetic but few other industries get away with 'as-is' disclaimers, Can you imagine it in the automotive,aeronautical, transport etc? The present system is a pass the parcel of blame with no one taking any responsibility, tonnes of shit, insecure systems written and designed poorly. Eventually something will give.
  - jonnathanson 10y ago
    "Can you imagine it in the automotive,aeronautical, transport etc?" This. This is the most important point I've read so far. The key word here is "imagine." I think even we, as an industry, don't quite grok the degree to which software truly has eaten the world -- and the degree to which it now is every bit as important, as life-or-death, as things like cars, airplane travel, or even medicine. We hold these goods to certain standards because we deem them extremely critical -- too important to be left to the de facto standards set by the operation of a wild-west market. It's about time the notion of standards-free software shocked people as much as the notion of standards-free engineering in any other systemically critical industry. I'd prefer self-established standards set by the industry to government-imposed standards set by lay bureaucrats. But the latter is coming eventually if the former never does.
- 10y ago

dkarl 10y ago

I think that's a bit harsh without knowing whether the software vendor was allowed to be effectively involved in the training and integration efforts. Software like this depends on lots of processes around the rollout and usage being properly designed and executed, and the fact that the software is being used successfully in many places suggests that the vendor knows how to deploy the software safely. Whether they were complicit in not doing so in the case of Alameda County is the important question. Maybe the county ran out of money at the last minute and the vendor couldn't stop them from cutting corners on the rollout. Maybe the vendor doesn't think it's good customer relations to go public with the fact that they told the county over and over again that they were creating risks of errors like this. Maybe they even had stipulations in their contract to stop improper integrations from happening and the government ignored them or found a way around them. Hopefully there will be an investigation and the people will find out who screwed up and why so they can be held accountable. It's tempting to say that everyone involved is "responsible" in some vague way, but that lets people off too easy. If everyone is guilty, then no one is guilty.

nkrisc 10y ago

I agree that you can't blame the software but disagree with who should be liable. The entity using the software needs to be liable (in this case either the State or the courts). They are responsible for implementing and using the the software thus ought to be liable for any mistakes it makes, whether user error or software bug. If they then want to take that up with the creator of the software, that's between them.

kafkaesq 10y ago

You can't just blame third party software or the people entering data. Indeed, this excuse just doesn't pass the smell test. Responsible vendors do (and not only "do", they advocate and insist on) practices like integration testing, and graduated rollouts (so that when process glitches like these inevitably slip through, they're caught when they affect 1 or 2 people -- not 50). Never do they blame "bad inputting of data."