How many here worked on the project? So far, only Kurt Cagle.
It's ironic to see a list where the calling card is data design drop
into the same mode of armchair quarterbacking as the talking heads on
CNN.
IOW, without the ICDs, RFPs and architectural design documents, or
first hand experience any analysis is dubious. On the other hand
given the preference given in procurements to web-based systems, it
will be very useful to know technically precisely what went wrong.
That the government procurement is messy is a given. That the vendors
failed to produce a working system is self-evident. But blaming tools
that appear to be working in other projects while lauding tools that
weren't applied is the best example of blame shifting one can apply.
So for some "n" of working, again given the preference for using the
web system and it's history of being kudzu in world of development of
large distributed systems, it will be very valuable to know why the
failure is so pervasive. One would like not to repeat the debacle.
I am reminded of the launch of Vanguard followed very quickly by the
successful launch of the Redstone. I suspect these events have much
in common culturally and technically, but having not been there, it is
a surface comparison.
