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To: tobyhill

I am not now nor ever have been a Computer engineer or soft ware writer, but I know that there are many in the IT field that are FReepers. Please, tell me: Is there ANY chance that a system like healthcare.gov could ever be fixed I such a short period of time. Particularly since it took over three years and half a billion dollars to screw it up?


15 posted on 11/10/2013 10:12:19 AM PST by Jim from C-Town (The government is rarely benevolent, often malevolent and never benign!)
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To: Jim from C-Town

I never managed software, but was close by in mechatronics.
This appears to be a very large system, interacting with other systems.
Making “changes” really doesn’t help unless they are validated changes, which takes time. Unvalidated changes can often result in additional issues.

I particularly chuckled when Baraq and Seb announced the “tech surge” with gurus from Google, RedHat, and Oracle. Because every floundering mega-project needs a few more giant egos to inspire the troops.


23 posted on 11/10/2013 10:18:53 AM PST by nascarnation (Baraq's 3rd term: squaw Warren? Lord help us!)
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To: Jim from C-Town
Please, tell me: Is there ANY chance that a system like healthcare.gov could ever be fixed I such a short period of time.

It depends on what the definition of "fixed" is. Certainly it can be configured to collect the necessary data (providing it proper security is an issue that seems belatedly to have occurred to the program directors, but it's possible). Navigating the endless sea of rules, exemptions, lacunae, and contradictory directions is going to take a very long time to work out if ever. Law is only good law when it's a clear, sharply-defined set of directions. 0bamacare is terrible law. It's a grab-bag of liberal aspirations that was never even read, much less checked for coherency, before being passed.

I'm suggesting that the underlying model will be impossible to clean up sufficiently to turn into clear, algorithmic guidance without the sort of overhaul that the Dems will never permit lest close examination throw the entire thing into the trash can it deserves. The monkey has hold of the cookie and won't let it go in order to get its hand out of the jar. They're stuck, we're stuck.

25 posted on 11/10/2013 10:22:51 AM PST by Billthedrill
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To: Jim from C-Town

No! Been there, done that, or rather declined participation (and somehow survived) in a similar rushed fix project of a much smaller system, a fix that was to take 4 weeks (”a month is too long!”) and took a couple of years in such 4 week increments (”a month is too long!”, I kid you not!), in addition to taking down two VPs. It can’t be done. Period.


36 posted on 11/10/2013 10:39:02 AM PST by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong! Ice cream is delicious!)
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To: Jim from C-Town
There's several capable system's engineers that have weighed in on it. Basically, it would take longer than a month just to begin to know what needs to be done. Then there's this project:

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration spent $2.6 billion trying to upgrade its air-traffic-control system, only to cancel the project in 1994.

65 posted on 11/10/2013 5:24:35 PM PST by D-fendr (Deus non alligatur sacramentis sed nos alligamur.)
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