So the Obamacare website sounds like the biggest foobar (that’s a programmer technical term) ever. People create complex websites every day, and yet Obama — armed with hundreds of millions of dollars — couldn’t make this happen. I’m kind of getting the impression that Obama only really cared about “winning” a battle with Republicans but never really cared much about implementing this program successfully. But I guess that goes for everything he’s done politically.
Anyway, I love laughing at this failure, but the programmer in me just wants to get at debugging it. I love debugging. But if I fixed the Obamacare website and helped keep Obamacare from it’s now inevitable delay, I’d be known as history’s greatest monster… but also really smart. I like being known as smart.
Hey, if you want to change things, go win an election, Frank!
Oh man, if you like debugging, I’ve got some code you could look at.
I kind of like debugging too, but only when I’m debugging my own code. Trying to debug someone else’s code (especially when you don’t really know what it’s supposed to do) is one of the lower circles of hell.
Ernie Loco,
I feel the opposite way. I’ve learned to much from debugging that my code never has big juicy errors in it. I love debugging other people’s code and first having to reverse engineer what they were trying to do.
Frank, could you reverse engineer our Federal Government? There are a lot of code violations in it – of the Constitutional variety.
It’s spelled FUBAR, and it’s an acronym. The last four letters stand for “up beyond all recognition”.
Iowa Jim,
In programming, it’s usually spelled “foobar” and “foo” and “bar” are often used as names for functions or variable in example programs (or hacks).
Iowa Jim,
I always considered it a variation of the naval term, SNAFU, which as everyone knows, is Situation Normal, All Fouled Up!
Let’s play Acronym Tag. You get a gold star if you post one that no one else drags in here.
I’ll start and exempt myself from prize winning. [As-If…!]
SCUM : So-Called Unbiased Media
BANANA : Build Absolutely Nothing, Anywhere Near Anyone
Next ?
I think there’s a way you could have the smart props without being the supervillain. If you set up a rival website that had no official purpose but that would let people sign up just for fun and got it 100% bulletproof working then our government would be so embarrassed by that it would have to shut down permanently out of shame while basking in your free market glory.
Here’s one for you Uncle Kevvie…JANFU. Know that one?
BBBMFIC from my days in the cav.
maybe the whole thing crashed because it used pirated code: http://www.dustbury.com/archives/17287
Re: foobar vs FUBAR
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foobar
Obama, Biden and Sebilius walk into a Foo bar…(unintended?) comedy ensues.
How about the ID-10-T form?
Frank, I’d ‘fix’ the code so that the name, address, phonenumber, and SSN for each applicant who get’s a “stipend” gets put on a bill that is then sent to all taxpayers.
@14 – lets see if we all can flesh that out…
…the bar tender asks what they’d like.
Sebilius says, “I’d like a Cow Pie. That’s vodka, chocolate liqueor, and milk.”
….
@14
…Biden says, drooling, “Hey gang, check out the nong-nongs on that Foo at the end of the bar!”
(After all, don’t forget, it is a Foo bar.)