[ Date Index ] [ Thread Index ] [ <= Previous by date / thread ] [ Next by date / thread => ]
> On Mon, 17 Sep 2007 11:20:49 +0100 > Tom Potts <tompotts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >> On Monday 17 September 2007 09:24, Neil Williams wrote: >> > Come on MS, £343m is peanuts - Bill probably has that much down the >> > back of the sofa. When the NHS has just spent £5bn on a Windows-based >> > authentication system that cannot cope with the existing (pilot-stage) >> > demand of maybe 0.5% of the expected workload, £343m is truly >> > inconsequential. >> Can anyone tell me where I can apply for these NHS contracts - I guess >> all you >> have to do is make up a figure and then get a contract lawyer to pull >> holes >> in the agreement and you can be rich! >> Oh hang on - I can actually write software - I guess that will exclude >> me! >> Tom te tom te tom > > Too right - NHS software isn't written as software, it is packaged > using proprietary "toolkits" that don't need anything as taxing as a > language. Think of the love child of Glade and Visual Basic. Little > wonder the crap doesn't work. > > I once asked one of the upstream "developers" of a piece of NHS > software (used by thousands of premises across the UK) why a certain > function didn't work and why the regular expression couldn't simply be > tweaked to allow the relevant character. Dumb idea. The whole thing > went over his head : "The toolkit doesn't support macros". Huh? He > really thought I was talking about Excel macros or similar. > > Needless to say nobody "developing" the programs has access to the > source code of the toolkit so they wait and spend another £1,000 on the > "upgrade". Absolutely $%&$£ loopy. > They call it "progress..." -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html