Bombshell: Obamacare Website Uses Decade-Old Technology, May Require 'Constant Fixes' For Six Months

Townhall.com ^ | October 18, 2013 | Guy Benson

[InterceptPoint]

Are there any software wizards out there in FR land who might know what this might mean:

"The federal health care exchange was built using 10-year-old technology ..."?

I don't think they are talking about hardware. This is a failed software development program.

So what is 10 year old software technology?

[CommieCutter]

How is that possible?

What would you use to build a website like this— Dreamweaver or something comparable? And wouldn’t programs like this be updated to HTML 4 or 5 by now?

You don’t even really need to code HTML anymore, just know about it. The programs do it for you and most are on HTML 4, I think.

[publana]

I heard on one of the FOXNEWS shows last night that the company is CANADIAN. We paid them close to 100 million dollars for this site. They chose to use open source software that is available for free, is old, and outdated. They hid this fact by removing the required for licensing name of the company on the bottom of each page.

Whether any of this is true, I do not know as I did not download the software and review it. If so, the Canadian company made a tidy profit on the deal. LOL

[StormEye]

"Where did all the money go?"

Obama's friends.
The Democrat Party.
Secretly funneled to unions.
Vote rigging operations in the various states.
Bribes to pay off MSM propagandists.
Various members of Congress to buy votes.
Etc. The usual places including Obama's pocket.

[frogjerk]

you are bad

[CommieCutter]

That has to be the only explanation.

[jpsb]

"So the task fell to trusted campaign tech experts"

OMG! Campaign techs! They are so screwed, yup now I believe CGIs were used to build the Obamacare web site. FOOLS! Nothing wrong with CGIs, fine for a low volume, non complex data web site like a candidates campaign site.

[goodnesswins]

YEP...what YOU said...the WEBSITE is NOT the problem....it’s the attempt to CONTROL everyone’s life...they are finding it is a little more difficult than they thought.

[11th Commandment]

the tiny trickle of enrollees is actually something of a blessing in disguise. Why? The back-end connectivity issues are so terrible, that an avalanche of "successful" sign-ups could cripple that part of the system.

On inside information, this statement is so true. The reason for Obama Waivers was not only about political payback, but that there was NO way the government and contractors could handle the work. The government/contractors still haven't trained everyone. Offices are still under construction.

Reported that if an application happens to come through for a small business it goes to the bottom of the pile because there is nothing set up to process.

The government is so far behind on individuals that there is not way they are ready to process all the entities that must sign up next year when the waivers expire.

[cuban leaf]

Visual basic, the old interpreted version. ;-)

[COBOL2Java]

Behind the scenes at HealthCare.gov

[Eagle of Liberty]

Posting this to most Obamacare threads:

Obamacare Site Glitches Shine Spotlight On Canadian IT Giant CGI

A Montreal-based information technology giant has found itself in the middle of an uproar over glitches in the newly-launched Obamacare website, with some pundits ready to blame Canada.

CGI Federal, a division of CGI Group, the world’s sixth-largest IT firm, holds the principal contract to develop and run the federal HealthCare.gov website. The site hosts the health care exchanges where Americans in 36 U.S. states can sign up for subsidized health care. (The remaining states are building their own health care exchanges.)

The U.S. government has paid CGI at least $88 million U.S. to build and support the federal exchange, the Washington Post reports.

But glitches plagued the CGI-built website from the moment it launched Oct. 1.

“Blank boxes where security questions are supposed to appear. Pleas to ‘be patient.’ Error messages galore. Notices that ‘the system is busy right now.’ Web pages timing out before they load. Garbled lines of text riddled with stray question marks,” Reuters reported.

And the glitches had a substantial impact. According to an AP-GfK poll, three-quarters of visitors to the site reported problems signing up.

[cuban leaf]

At least it’s not written in Perl.

---

OUCH!

[jpsb]

CGIs, Common Gateway Interface, popular back in the mid-late 90’s but the tec was replaced by servlets, and servlets were were replace by enterprise beans. I am retired now so I don’t know the latest server tec today. 4 years ago it was EJBs (EJB3) Enterprise Java Beans.

[a fool in paradise]

Where did all the money go?

"What difference does it matter at this point in time, anyhow???"

[jpsb]

Open source is usually good code as long as it is well vetted (used a lot by lots of folks), but it is a serious (criminal) no no to remove the open source header, if that was done then someone is in deep do do.

[Red Badger]

They probably think Linux is a character from Peanuts comic strip.....................

[Kaslin]

Thanks for posting

[publana]

I heard on one of the FOXNEWS shows last night that the company is CANADIAN. We paid them close to 100 million dollars for this site. They chose to use open source software that is available for free, is old, and outdated. They hid this fact by removing the required for licensing name of the company on the bottom of each page.

I should have added that there is nothing wrong imo with php and open source software for a website. The problem arose, i believe, when the 0 admin reviewed the site and wanted it all changed to force users to input their information prior to seeing the pricing structure. This would cause a rewrite of much of the software where the company would have to actually have some knowledge of php. The 0 admin also waited until the last minute which made it impossible to get the work done on time.

I don't blame the Canadian developer at all. The 0 admin shouldn't have waited until the last minute to review the site and should have given the development team their requirements from the start. Changing boats in midstream is never a good idea when there are written in stone due date on project completion.

[Kaslin]

Why should I laugh. I agree with you