[kenkam]

Call me a cynic -- here is a well known, renowned software development methodology expert who makes money on giving talks, books, etc. He argues that regulation of the software industry is a solution. Specifically: "I'd be thinking about what languages and processes we should force them to use". He just argued his business case. This makes me take whatever he says with a large pinch of salt.

Also, he makes dramatic points which have little to do with the problem. He describes the challenger problem, where a teacher's life could have been saved -- there were children waiting for that lesson! How is that relevant to what we're dealing with? I think it's a poor analogy only used for dramatic effect.

All this makes me feel the article as insincere and merely cashing in on the bad launch of healthcare.gov.

[secstate]

Okay, cynic. Just kidding, I totally agree with your appraisal here. I think the real revelation, if you can call it that, is that there are certain sorts of projects that governments are inherently bad at. All you have to do is look at an indy project like: http://www.thehealthsherpa.com/ to realize that $600 million is not needed ot build a highly functional site.

On the flip side of that, I don't think HealthSherpa, or any small indy sites adhere to all the draconian government-mandated access requirements that an official blessed project does.

[swanson]

I read the whole "Repercussions" section as from the point-of-view of a government official. The repercussions are that they start mandating and regulating - developers/companies probably don't want this, but that could be a likely fallout from more large-scale, failed, tax payer funded projects.

[maxk42]

Regulating the software industry will set us all back 100 years.

Innovation blossoms where people are free to innovate.

[kenkam]

Agreed. I will be interested to know what the lessons learned were and perhaps regulation will be the answer specifically for government projects, ie. civil projects similar to aircraft/military software development.

Edit: grammar