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You still don't think even $90 million for a website that mostly performs CRUD operations is absurd?

by adam419 13y ago

swalkergibson 13y ago
I definitely agree that it seems like an awful lot. Any idea what a standard hourly bill-rate is for DC? In Arizona, the agency I work for bills at $125/hour. However, not knowing the exact requirements for the project, we can only speculate as to what the true complexity is. Perhaps the insurance companies in each state did not provide well-documented REST APIs and you had hundreds of custom screen-scrapers pulling the data. Or, perhaps $30 million went to paying all of those insurance companies to build the required APIs? I cannot imagine how difficult and frustrating it would be to interface with those systems. Plus, all of the privacy and data safeguarding practices, and then arranging hosting, etc, etc, etc. Was there waste? Most likely. Was there waste to the tune of tens of millions? Couldn't say. However, to dismiss it as a simple CRUD app might be belying the complexity underneath.
- adam419 13y ago
  I don't know man, while those possible sources of complexity and complications may be the case, to me they're still inexcusable. Many companies each year manage to successfully implement and release systems of ungodly complexity compared to whatever had to be dealt with to make some website like this. All those sources of inefficiency are, to me, consequential of the fact that the people doing this work don't have proper incentives. $90M for a failed website that has to be redone? Well it's just tax dollars, let's suck in some more. If any private company were to perform like this, they would be obliterated and their work would be done by people who are competent.
  - swalkergibson 13y ago
    If you will recall, Twitter in its early days was essentially unusable due to high load. That was a private company that ultimately found its way. However, that is really here nor there. I am always hesitant to make an armchair judgement about the execution of a development project without all of the facts because there are so many places where things can go pear-shaped. That is basically my point.

You still don't think even $90 million for a website that mostly performs CRUD operations is absurd?

by adam419 13y ago

You still don't think even $90 million for a website that mostly performs CRUD operations is absurd?

I definitely agree that it seems like an awful lot. Any idea what a standard hourly bill-rate is for DC? In Arizona, the agency I work for bills at $125/hour. However, not knowing the exact requirements for the project, we can only speculate as to what the true complexity is. Perhaps the insurance companies in each state did not provide well-documented REST APIs and you had hundreds of custom screen-scrapers pulling the data. Or, perhaps $30 million went to paying all of those insurance companies to build the required APIs? I cannot imagine how difficult and frustrating it would be to interface with those systems. Plus, all of the privacy and data safeguarding practices, and then arranging hosting, etc, etc, etc. Was there waste? Most likely. Was there waste to the tune of tens of millions? Couldn't say. However, to dismiss it as a simple CRUD app might be belying the complexity underneath.

adam419 13y ago
I don't know man, while those possible sources of complexity and complications may be the case, to me they're still inexcusable. Many companies each year manage to successfully implement and release systems of ungodly complexity compared to whatever had to be dealt with to make some website like this. All those sources of inefficiency are, to me, consequential of the fact that the people doing this work don't have proper incentives. $90M for a failed website that has to be redone? Well it's just tax dollars, let's suck in some more. If any private company were to perform like this, they would be obliterated and their work would be done by people who are competent.
- swalkergibson 13y ago
  If you will recall, Twitter in its early days was essentially unusable due to high load. That was a private company that ultimately found its way. However, that is really here nor there. I am always hesitant to make an armchair judgement about the execution of a development project without all of the facts because there are so many places where things can go pear-shaped. That is basically my point.