Healthcare.gov fiasco, last flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger and an ancient programmer’s joke

On January 28, 1986 the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up in the skies above Florida 73 seconds after its ill-fated launch.
How was this possible? Why was it so poorly designed and built? What were the skills and qualifications of its builders?
Do not worry about them. They knew what they were doing. They built an almost perfect space vehicle to be launched from tropical Cape Canaveral. According to its specifications, the shuttle should have been operated at temperatures above ~15 Celsius / ~60 Fahrenheit degrees.
However, January 28^th was an unusually cold day with temperature around freezing at night. A few icicles even hung from the rocket booster.
When asked, engineers who designed the Space Shuttle said “Do not launch. It’s too risky. Most likely it will fail”.
After this message was transmitted through multiple layers of management and reached the top bosses of NASA it was significantly softened.
NASA management only saw a small risk and decided “So what? Launch it!”.
The Challenger was launched and flew more or less OK until the 73^rd second of its last flight.

I recalled this story while reading James Marcus Bach's eloquent commentary on the root causes of the HealthCare.gov fiasco (http://www.satisfice.com/blog/archives/940).

I am certain that when the software engineers who designed the HealthCare Exchange were asked to launch or not to launch they answered “Do not launch. It’s too risky. Most likely it will fail”.
After this message was transmitted through multiple layers of management and reached the top bosses of Health and Human Services it was significantly softened.
HHS management only saw a small risk and decided “So what? Launch it!”.
For the first 73 seconds the healthcare exchange flew more or less OK, and you can find what happened next in the newspapers, on TV and on Ben Simo's site (http://blog.isthereaproblemhere.com/).

It’s not the first time this has happened on a software project. An ancient programmer’s joke describes a similar situation.

“In the beginning was the plan, and then the specification; And the plan was without form, and the specification was void.

And darkness was on the faces of the implementors thereof; And they spake unto their leader, saying:
"It is a crock of ****, and smells as of a sewer."

And the leader took pity on them, and spoke to the project leader: "It is a crock of excrement, and none may abide the odor thereof."

And the project leader spake unto his section head, saying:
"It is a container of excrement, and it is very strong, such that none may abide it."

The section head then hurried to his department manager, and informed him thus: "It is a vessel of fertilizer, and none may abide its strength."

The department manager carried these words to his general manager, and spoke unto him saying: "It containeth that which aideth the growth of plants, and it is very strong."

And so it was that the general manager rejoiced and delivered the good news unto the Vice President. "It promote the growth, and it is very powerful."

The Vice President rushed to the President's side, and joyously exclaimed: "This powerful new software product will promote the growth of the company!"

And the President looked upon the product, and saw that it was very good.”

I do not know who created this joke, but today I reread it one more time and especially liked the ending: “And the President looked upon the product, and saw that it was very good.”

$30 billion in damages caused by Microsoft bug

A few weeks ago I suddenly noticed that using Microsoft Office 2010 didn't bother me anymore. It was no longer stressful and I knew how to locate most functions. From time to time I still need to check Help or use Google to locate functions I have not yet memorized, but I am now reasonably fast and efficient (almost as efficient as with the “pre-ribbon” version).

Microsoft introduced the so called ribbon interface in MS Office 2007 and moved almost all features to new GUI locations. I still remember my frustration when in November 2010 I was forced to migrate from Office 2003 to Office 2007. After 15 years of experience with Microsoft Office I suddenly became a novice with only minimal knowledge of where to find typical features. Creation and modification of MS Word documents suddenly slowed down to a crawl. I was almost constantly looking into Help or Googling to find new locations of familiar features. I was not spending this time learning new features – I was spending this time on finding new locations of features I have already mastered during 15 years of use.

Two and a half years after transitioning to the “ribbon based” version of MS Office, I am finally content with this product. I am not yet as productive as before, but the productivity gap has become negligible.

My estimate is that I lost about 100 hours in two and a half years due to diminished productivity caused by transitioning from MS Office 2003 to MS Office 2007.

And what about other people? Let’s estimate their losses caused by the ribbon interface.

Right now MS Office is purportedly “used by over a billion people worldwide”, according to Wikipedia.

I believe that most of them are novice users who started on MS office with the ribbon interface and were not affected by the transition.

I assume that only 3 million people in western countries were power users of MS Office and experienced about the same challenges as me.

Assuming a $100 per hour loaded cost of their time we can estimate total business losses as:

3,000,000 people x 100 hours x $100 per hr = $30,000,000,000.

According to my calculations businesses lost 30 billion dollars due to introduction of the ribbon interface by Microsoft.

Was it worth it? I am not sure.

I do not recall seeing a comparison of economic benefits and losses due to the introduction of the ribbon interface.

$30 billion in losses may be OK if benefits exceeded this amount.

Have they?