Despair over UK Government IT

GeoffW
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Re: Despair over UK Government IT

Post by GeoffW »

ChrisGreaves wrote:
08 Oct 2020, 18:26
I thought that they were called hip-oh! zucchinis because the only way people can carry them out to their cars is to hoist them onto their hips.
I just got rid of another Big One. Not the 7-pounder, though.
Actually, If I'd been on the ball I would have used four at a time and refused to let vehicles leave my property without their :wine: organic :wine: wheel chocks.
Cheers
Chris
Courgettes zucch.

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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Despair over UK Government IT

Post by ChrisGreaves »

GeoffW wrote:
08 Oct 2020, 19:36
Courgettes zucch.
In bone soup you can suck the marrow out of them!
Cheers
Chris
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silverback
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Re: Despair over UK Government IT

Post by silverback »

A report on the Excel fiasco (nothing about :censored: zucchini) says (weasel words abound)
Public Health England last month revealed that at least 15841 individuals who tested positive between Sept 20 and Oct 20 were not referred to the national contact tracing system.
The error was due to an Excel spreadsheet reaching its maximum file size.
Researchers now estimate that the glitch can be associated with 126,836 to 185,188 additional cases, and between 1521 and 2049 additional Covid related deaths.
Daily Telegraph News, Tuesday, 24th November

There have been no reports of anyone being disciplined or fired for this error.
I despair.
Silverback

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BobH
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Re: Despair over UK Government IT

Post by BobH »

Back to the topic of IT, one of the most difficult lessons that IT professionals must learn is that just because you can doesn't mean you should. I've actually fired programmers for adding functionality without validating their ideas with the design team. In the referenced case, using a spreadsheet was the wrong choice. My guess is that the decision was made, not by an IT professional, but by a knowledgeable user who didn't consider the consequences, thus, Hanlons Razor.
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GeoffW
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Re: Despair over UK Government IT

Post by GeoffW »

I worked at a time (at least later in my career) when the specs were sancrosanct, to be adhered to religiously.

In this law enforcement agency, I suggested a change to the interface. It was cautiously allowed.

It turned out to be an extremely useful feature, reducing the amount of desk time in front of a screen from seven hours per day to one hour, this allowing a huge increase in investigation time.

The system changes were implemented hurriedly after a major terrorist incident, and contributed immensely to solving the crime.

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stuck
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Re: Despair over UK Government IT

Post by stuck »

BobH wrote:
27 Nov 2020, 02:43
...My guess is that the decision was made, not by an IT professional, but by a knowledgeable user who didn't consider the consequences, thus, Hanlons Razor.
Yes, your thinking is precisely why I quoted Hanlon's Razor. I'll put money on this system having been first 'developed' a long time ago, i.e. when .xls was all there was, by someone in a local lab to ease their workflow when trying to 'track and trace' something like a local food poisoning outbreak. No one will have ever imagined it would end up being scaled up to handle the number of records required at the moment.

Ken

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jonwallace
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Re: Despair over UK Government IT

Post by jonwallace »

stuck wrote:
27 Nov 2020, 12:19
BobH wrote:
27 Nov 2020, 02:43
...My guess is that the decision was made, not by an IT professional, but by a knowledgeable user who didn't consider the consequences, thus, Hanlons Razor.
Yes, your thinking is precisely why I quoted Hanlon's Razor. I'll put money on this system having been first 'developed' a long time ago, i.e. when .xls was all there was, by someone in a local lab to ease their workflow when trying to 'track and trace' something like a local food poisoning outbreak. No one will have ever imagined it would end up being scaled up to handle the number of records required at the moment.

Ken
Speaking as an ex-NHS Lab worker and watching the abuses that my colleagues used excel to perpetrate, I think stuck is right...
John

“Always trust a microbiologist because they have the best chance of predicting when the world will end”
― Teddie O. Rahube

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stuck
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Re: Despair over UK Government IT

Post by stuck »

jonwallace wrote:
27 Nov 2020, 12:23
Speaking as an ex-NHS Lab worker and watching the abuses that my colleagues used excel to perpetrate, I think stuck is right...
Speaking as a current Gov't Agency worker and watching the abuses that my colleagues inflict on Excel workbooks derived from my templates, I think I'm right too :grin:

Ken

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StuartR
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Re: Despair over UK Government IT

Post by StuartR »

Often Excel is used as a data transfer mechanism because there are large numbers of systems with no interoperability or APIs
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