Millions of people experienced the frustration and failures of the Obamacare website when it first launched. Because the code for the back end is not open source, the exact technicalities of the initial failings are tricky to determine. Many curious programmers and web designers have had time to examine the open source coding on the front end, however, leading to reasonable conclusions about the nature of the overall difficulties.

Lack of End to End Collaboration
The website was developed with multiple contractors for the front-end and back-end functions. The site also needed to be integrated with insurance companies, IRS servers, Homeland Security servers, and the Department of Veterans Affairs, all of whom had their own legacy systems. The large number of parties involved and the complex nature of the various components naturally complicated the testing and integration of each portion of the project.

The errors displayed, and occasionally the lack thereof, indicated an absence of coordination between the parties developing the separate components. A failed sign up attempt, for instance, often resulted in a page that displayed the header but had no content or failure message. A look at end user requests revealed that the database was unavailable. Clearly, the coding for the front end did not include errors for failures on the back end.

Bloat and the Abundance of Minor Issues
Obviously, numerous bugs were also an issue. The system required users to create passwords that included numbers, for example, but failed to disclose that on the form and in subsequent failure messages, leaving users baffled. In another issue, one of the pages intended to ask users to please wait or call instead, but the message and the phone information were accidentally commented out in the code.

While the front-end design has been cleared of blame for the most serious failures, bloat in the code did contribute to the early difficulties users experienced. The site design was heavy with Javascript and CSS files, and it was peppered with small coding errors that became particularly troublesome when users faced bottlenecks in traffic. Frequent typos throughout the code proved to be an additional embarrassment and were another indication of a troubled development process.

NoSQL Database
The NoSQL database is intended to allow for scalability and flexibility in the architecture of projects that will use it. This made NoSQL a logical choice for the health insurance exchange website. The newness of the technology, however, means personnel with expertise can be elusive. Database-related missteps were more likely the result of a lack of experienced administrators than with the technology itself. The choice of the NoSQL database was thus another complication in the development, but did not itself cause the failures.

Another factor of consequence is that the website was built with both agile and waterfall methodology elements. With agile methods for the front end and the waterfall methodology for the back end, streamlining was naturally going to suffer further difficulties. The disparate contractors, varied methods of software development, and an unrealistically short project time line all contributed to the coding failures of the website.

It is rather unfortunate that in the ever changing and rapidly improving world of technology, we hardly remember the geniuses who through their inventions laid the foundation for many of the conveniences and features we now enjoy in our favorite communication devices.

This article is a tribute to the ten people who made these discoveries and an attempt to bring their achievements into the limelight.

1.      Marty Cooper

Did you know that Cooper was the first to file the patent in 1973, when he was already working for Motorola for the “radio telephone system”. The Cooper’s Law is his brainchild and to think that he himself was inspired to come out with the patent was Star Trek and its Captain Kirk is indeed revealing.

2. Mike Lazardidis
 

There are a lot of articles you will find on the internet that talk about the tenants of having a successful professional career. From soft-skills to job relevant skills, there is an unending list of the do’s and don’ts for establishing a great career. However, a successful career in information technology commands some specific efforts and focus. As a result, it is critical to focus on these 4 key tenants that can help you establish a promising and successful career in Information Technology.

·         Be Multi-lingual– This is the analogy of Steve Job’s famous quote ‘Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish’ as it applies to Information Technology. Gone are the days when you could train yourself on a specific programming language say Java or C++ and code your way to a successful career. The best programmers of today and tomorrow are pushing the limits and becoming experts in one of more languages. Knowing more than one programming language instantly makes you more employable since you can add value to multiple projects that require different languages. If you need proof, IT professionals knowing more than one language can attract a salary premium of £10,000 . Additionally, there is no telling how dynamic technology is and by being open to constantly learning new languages you will position yourself to get technology jobs that did not exist a few years ago

·         Go Beyond the ‘How’, Focus On ‘Why’: A common theme with most information technology professionals is their ability to figure out the HOW or, in other words, applying their technical know-how in achieving the solution to a problem. This is especially true when you are working for a service based IT organization where your key job is to develop a solution for the client’s business problem. Yes, you are and will get paid to be good at the ‘How’ but to advance a career in IT; it will help you immensely to also start focussing on the ‘Why’. This stems from a famous quote by Einsten “If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it”. In essence, spend time in understanding ‘Why’ are your trying to solve the problem before you get down with figuring out the ‘How’ part. The reasons for developing this mindset are two-fold. One, you will instantly distinguish yourself from thousands of other IT peers who are content with the ‘How’ part. Two, there is a good chance that you want to get ahead in your career not only as a programmer but as a system architect or a business solution consultant. This is where the habit of asking the right questions pertaining to why a certain IT solution is requires will help you build the right solution.

·         Focus on the impact and results (Financial impact):This may not apply to IT professionals who are early in their careers but is paramount for senior IT professionals. For the most part, IT departments are required to make sure that the systems and the solutions function as desired and help the business run efficiently. In other words, the key metric for success for most IT professionals is being extremely good at technology, languages and Quality Assurance. However, the times are changing! No longer is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) in charge of making IT decisions. With organizations closely guarding the ROI of their investment in technology, CIOs are increasingly required to be cognizant of the financial benefits of technology so that they can justify the spending on IT. No wonder than that CFOs are increasingly pressurizing CIOs to get their act together

Programmers often tend to be sedentary people. Sitting in a chair and pressing keys, testing code, and planning out one logical step-wise strategy after another to get the computer to process data the way you want it to is just what life as a programmer is all about. But, is being too sedentary hindering a programmers max potential? In other words, will getting up, moving around, and getting the blood pumping make us better programmers? To answer this question more efficiently, we will need to consider the impact of exercise on various aspects of programming.

Alertness And Focus

It is no surprise that working up a sweat makes the mind wake up and become more alert. As the blood starts pumping, the body physically reacts in ways that helps the mind to better focus. And improving our focus might make us better programmers in the sense that we are more able to wrap our mind around a problem and deal with it more efficiently than if we feel sluggish and not so alert. However, improving one's focus with exercise can be augmented by taking such vitamins as B6, Coleen, and eating more saturated fats rather than so many sugars. Exercise alone may be a good start, but it is important to realize that the impact of exercise on overall focus can be enhanced when combined with other dietary practices. However, it never hurts to begin a day of programming with fifteen minutes of rigorous workout to give the mind a little extra push.

Increase In Intellect

Does exercise cause a programmer to become a smarter programmer? This is perhaps a trickier question. In some sense, it might seem as if exercise makes us more intelligent. But, this may be more because our focus is sharper than because of any increase in actual knowledge. For example, if you don't know how to program in Python, it is highly doubtful that exercising harder will all of a sudden transfer such insights directly to your brain. However, exercise might have another indirect impact on a programmer’s intellect that will help them to become a better programmer. The more a person exercises, the more stamina and energy they will tend to have, as compared to programmers who never exercise all that much. That additional energy and stamina might help a programmer to be able to push themselves to learn things more efficiently, simply because they aren't getting tired as much as they study new languages or coding techniques. If you have more energy and stamina throughout the day, you will likely be more productive as a programmer as well. Greater productivity can often make one program better simply because they actually push themselves to finish projects. Other programmers who do not exercise on a regular basis may simply lack the energy, stamina, and motivation to follow through and bring their programming projects to completion.

Memory

The ability to remember things and recall them quickly is key to being an efficient programmer. Getting up and getting real exercise may be central to making sure that one does not lose control of these cognitive abilities. According to the New York Times, article, Getting a Brain Boost Through Exercise, recent research studies on mice and humans have shown that, in both cases, exercise does in fact appear to promote better memory function as well as other cognitive factors like spacial sense. (1) Consequently, if a person intends to be a programmer for a long time and wants their mind to be able to remember things and recall them more easily, then exercise may need to become an essential part of such a programmer's daily routine.

As much as one might want to resist the need for exercise and be sedentary programmers, the simple fact is that exercise very well could improve our ability to program in numerous ways. More importantly, exercise is critical to improving and maintaining good health overall. Even if a person does not have much time to get up and move around during the day, there are exercises that one can do while sitting, which would be better to do than no exercise at all.

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