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State Bars are so technically illiterate that they don't know the basics of how to procure technology. California Bar has no CTO and didn't know to require an S

State Bars are so technically illiterate that they don't know the basics of how to procure technology. California Bar has no CTO and didn't know to require an SLA of ExamSoft. When ExamSoft blames the users for their buggy software, the Bar actually believes them.

convolvatron 4y ago
maybe if we had actually dug into open standards instead of this mushy cesspool of abandonware, not everyone in the world would have to spend their time tracking technology trends
- rattlesnakedave 4y ago
  Who is “we” here?
  - convolvatron 4y ago
    technologists. computer people. computer companies. the people responsible for this mess.
    - nexuist 4y ago
      Or maybe blame the California Bar for partnering with such amateur vendors when they had millions of competent technology companies to pick from?
- simonh 4y ago
  While I'm all for open standards, the fact is they're no magic wand. It's just as possible for an open system to be clunky, outdated and abandoned. Just because it's possible for someone to work on it or fix issues, that's no guarantee anyone will. The problem here was poor consideration of requirements and inadequate governance, and there's really no substitute for just flat out doing a better job at those. After all, nobody is stopping someone developing an open suite of exam software, it's not against the law or anything. It's all very well saying that's what we need, but somebody has to actually buckle down and do it.
rmbyrro 4y ago
It's basic common sense that by July/2022, some people will have acquired a laptop manufactured in 2022. Especially when you deal with exam takers in the thousands. It shouldn't require a CTO for that, IMHO.
- drc500free 4y ago
  They really believe that it's on the vendor to make decisions like that, and that any decision they make is reasonable because the vendors are the experts. These are the same folks who accidently leaked all of their confidential discipline records because of a "database flaw" that was automatically scraped.

convolvatron 4y ago

maybe if we had actually dug into open standards instead of this mushy cesspool of abandonware, not everyone in the world would have to spend their time tracking technology trends

rattlesnakedave 4y ago
Who is “we” here?
- convolvatron 4y ago
  technologists. computer people. computer companies. the people responsible for this mess.
  - nexuist 4y ago
    Or maybe blame the California Bar for partnering with such amateur vendors when they had millions of competent technology companies to pick from?
simonh 4y ago
While I'm all for open standards, the fact is they're no magic wand. It's just as possible for an open system to be clunky, outdated and abandoned. Just because it's possible for someone to work on it or fix issues, that's no guarantee anyone will. The problem here was poor consideration of requirements and inadequate governance, and there's really no substitute for just flat out doing a better job at those. After all, nobody is stopping someone developing an open suite of exam software, it's not against the law or anything. It's all very well saying that's what we need, but somebody has to actually buckle down and do it.

rmbyrro 4y ago

It's basic common sense that by July/2022, some people will have acquired a laptop manufactured in 2022. Especially when you deal with exam takers in the thousands. It shouldn't require a CTO for that, IMHO.

drc500free 4y ago
They really believe that it's on the vendor to make decisions like that, and that any decision they make is reasonable because the vendors are the experts. These are the same folks who accidently leaked all of their confidential discipline records because of a "database flaw" that was automatically scraped.