NoSQL? Really?

You just knew the truth about the ObamaCare website implementation was going to come out.  I know that when the book is written, it's going to be a best-seller.  But, in the meantime, the dribbles of information are just fascinating.

Friday's article in the New York Times is factual enough to begin to expose the real problems:

CGI and other contractors complained of endlessly shifting requirements and a government decision-making process so cumbersome that it took weeks to resolve elementary questions, such as determining whether users should be required to provide Social Security numbers. Some CGI software engineers ultimately walked out, saying it was impossible to produce good work under such conditions.

Yes, it was just what McKinsey identified and I mentioned a couple of posts below.  But buried in the article is this gem:

Another sore point was the Medicare agency’s decision to use database software, from a company called MarkLogic, that managed the data differently ...

Try looking up MarkLogic in Wikipedia and you come up with a pretty slim profile - but within it is probably everything you need to know.  They make the NoSQL database system.  When a company chooses to denigrate a standard like SQL in that way -- well, my advice is run, run, run.

Here, law professor Ann Althouse translates and interprets the New York Times article for us as if she were analyzing the dissent of a subtle but needling Supreme Court justice.  It is well worth reading if you think you might ever get to participate in managing a very visible I/T project.