So 55 separate goverment contractors trying to integrate incredibly nitpicky set of data and it does not work? I wonder why. Maybe first they should have fixed the process. You can't build nationwide websites same way you build physical things.
This is a good rebuttal. That NYT article smelled bad immediately.<p>The other thing that bugs me is when people complain that Obama should have just pulled in his campaign people. Integrating with undocumented, legacy APIS, and strange law-driven requirements is a completely different challenge than the type of still very difficult but free-wheeling and <i>modern</i> integration the campaign people had the freedom to play with.
Could anyone have made this project succeed? Is any IT project of this size destined to fail?<p>What private enterprise projects could compare in scope and size? Google's infrastructure? Facebook? Could they have succeeded if they hadn't started small?
Now the world runs on software you'd think the Times could find somebody to intelligently write about it. Or not assume the reader knows nothing -- they don't do that for cars.
I just finished 'managing' the integration of a service API with a web front-end. It was not at all easy to manage and everyone working was in-house.<p>Healthcare.gov has 50(!) contractors supervised by HHS?<p>To fix it they are bringing in 'specialists?' Someone should send everyone in HHS a copy of the Mythical Man Month.<p>I believe the probability of this thing EVER working are pretty close to zero.