Slashdot Mirror
Glitches in Massive Government Databases?
HBergeron asks: "Rather then post this as another YRO in the litany of new government datamarts there is a more fundamental question for all the coding Slashdot readers out there. This story, in Government Executive magazine, outlines the range of programming glitches in what is a relatively simple database. As a matter of public policy (and taxpayer money) is this level of non-functionality to be expected in these sorts of projects? Is the contractor just ripping off the taxpayers with bad code? How hard is it to write software like this that works?" The article focuses on the SEVIS database, but have others noticed similar trend in other government information systems?
...Except perhaps to the executives the magazine is aimed at. Early versions of software are generally pretty buggy, particularly if the target keeps changing, and most especially if it is in response to a hastily crafted law. The only thing that's surprising about this is that the output is taken so seriously by law enforcement officials *prior to completion*.
Don't they have some donuts that need eating?
I can think of several widely used systems that are backed by databases that work just fine. Slashdot wasn't built on a massive budget. Amazon doesn't have a history of "bleeding" data from one user to another. Google and Yahoo are certainly capable of handling tremendous loads.
I see several possible problems here. First, it is possible that this software was rushed into use before it was ready. Given the political pressures involved, I suspect that is part of the problem.
Second, I doubt that all of the programmers involved are of guru caliber. I don't intend to malign them. Even assuming that you have nothing but above-average programmers, when you build a huge project with lots of designers and coders, there are going to be miscommunications and some details that just aren't communicated.
Third, I would bet that this project has so much design documentation done up front that it is impossible for anyone to wrap their brains around the whole thing. This is, at best, a 1.0 release. And there are going to be design flaws in it. And the guys writing the code aren't likely to have a broad enough overview of it to spot them all. They also undoubtedly tripped over a lot of things that weren't specified up front and should have been. It is the nature of the game. But they weren't free to just choose a good solution when the questions came up.
The projects I cited at the beginning were developed by small teams with a vision of what they wanted to build. Within the constraints of the tools they had to work with and the general idea of what they were building, they were free to change the rules. They could refactor to their hearts' content. That is not going to be the case on huge government contracts.
Everything that we know about open source, agile/extreme programming, etc. doesn't apply to this kind of project.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
"They can't keep track of paroled felons, the database of people who can't vote is horribly flawed,"
Then don't live in Florida. It was a system designed to try to help Florida local governments enforce a Florida state law. This has absolutely nothing to do with the federal government, which is what the federal constitution mandates.
The way you genericly complain about "the government" shows one of the problems in these information systems: a total lack of knowledge of how "the government" works here in the US. We don't have one monolithic government (yet), we have a federal government, 56 state/commonwealth/district/territorial governments, and 3,066 county/city/parish/borough governments. Each of them have different rights and responsibilities spelled out by constitutions and charters. Each of them operates in a slightly different manner from all the others to reflect the wants and needs of its people.
I'm reminded of a story here on Slashdot a few years back about how France's government went "online," giving internet users the ability to do things like get a driver's license or enroll in public schools on a website. There were a great many people who complained about how the US hasn't done anything like this, all by people who didn't seem to realize that just about everything this new French site did are the responsibilities of state and local governments here in the US.
The only way things like this will get easier is if the US shifts away from the federal republic model and become a monolithic republic ala France. This would involve disemboweling the federal constitution and burning all state constitutions. Personally, I'd rather not see that happen.
Not this again. Once again, the reason for the $500 hammers, etc., is a matter of cost accounting, not nefarious fraud. These "scandals" erupted because the cost accounting used for a number of government contracts spread the large overhead and R&D costs equally by product line item. In other words, if there were 1,000,000 items being purchased, and $500,000,000 in R&D costs, each item was assigned $500 in R&D cost, whether it was a $50,000 custom circuit board or a $10 hammer. A lousy way to do cost allocation? You betcha. Fraud? Nope. See this for more info.