[OT] Re: uk general election
On Wed, Apr 13, 2005 at 08:56:25AM -0400, Michael Marsh wrote:
> On 4/13/05, Gene Heskett <gene.heskett@verizon.net> wrote:
> > In my experience, (tv station, about 45 desktops & several servers)
> > I've always found that the most usefull computer systems have all
> > been configured and maintained in-house. In every case, farming it
> > out has led to systems so tightly locked down (to reduce the
> > contractors work time and resultant charges to maintain them) that
> > they were effectively useless to the more savvy user. That is not
> > productive use of any employees time in any situation.
>
> If you're (that is, Geoff) going to have some of the resources of the
> UK government to back this up, then you could set up an official UK
> government .deb repository. "In-house" configuration could then be
> handled with meta-packages and a slightly customized installer that
> presents these meta-packages as the main configuration option.
> Setting up a new computer then becomes almost trivial, in contrast to
> a centralized post-installation Windows configuration.
>
> Another advantage of this is that all agencies' packages are available
> to every other agency, so admins/tech support groups can check out
> what others are using and easily add new programs to their
> meta-packages. This also allows for a single standardized set of
> packages that *every* agency will have to install.
>
> > With the apps written in house according to the usage that agency
> > needs, being 'computer literate' at the user level isn't that much of
> > a requirement. The coder just needs to know to make it both user
> > friendly, and to gently reject the obviously out of bounds entries
> > inept operators may input.
>
> I'd expect that a lot can be done with more-or-less standard back-ends
> (such as a particular database server) and file formats, coupled with
> fairly simple tools to develop locally. Custom Firefox extensions,
> for example, can provide interfaces to networked resources.
Thanks for the reply Michael. I don't understand why it is so
complicated myself, but apparently the latest CSA system contains 60
million lines of code. One gets the impression that every time the uk
Govt. has a new project to sort out it is sold to them as if it all has
to start from scratch, using no off-the-shelf tools whatsoever.
The idea of treating the whole Govt. system provision problem in a more
packaged and organic way - which is what I think you are suggesting -
appeals to me hugely. How realistic it might be to do this, I don't
know.
Cheers,
Geoff
>
> --
> Michael A. Marsh
> http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~mmarsh
> http://mamarsh.blogspot.com
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