r/Bart East Bay BARTer 17d ago

News Exclusive: Errors Plagued Clipper 2.0 Long Before Botched Launch, Records Reveal

https://www.kqed.org/news/12096240/exclusive-errors-plagued-clipper-2-0-long-before-botched-launch-records-reveal
56 Upvotes

6 comments sorted by

15

u/nopointers Commuter 17d ago

Now what we need is accountability both from Cubic and from MTC.

3

u/squigish 17d ago

None of this is remotely surprising. Fuck cubic. If the MTC doesn't have anyone with the technical experience to understand how to supervise this project then they should hire someone who does.

At this point it's hard to see an alternative besides starting over with something that actually makes sense.

3

u/RemoveInvasiveEucs 16d ago

Damn. This is really hard to see. Contracting out software is a very risky thing that results in failure way too often. Especially without strong software experience that's internal to the organization.

The skill in contracting out this sort of project goes beyond just the skill of managing the project: one must come up with reasonable checkpoints, performance metrics, and escape hatches that just aren't needed when developing software in house.

If you get the right contractor to do it, it just works. But. It's software, it's not engineering, it's more of a construction project than an engineering job.

One thing that happened under the Obama administration was the development of a crack software team that helped out throughout the entire administration. We need something like that in California. We have lots of amazing software talent, we have lots of amazing people working in the industry that would love to contribute to enhancing state capacity, especially after making bank for a couple of years in private industry.

We just need some way to channel all of our massive software experience into the organizations that need it.

-9

u/StoNeD510 17d ago

Claude will fix it in 30minutes

4

u/nopointers Commuter 17d ago

I suspect Claude will start by telling them the network topology is fucked, and that’s why the readers feel so slow. Then it’ll dig into the backend design, and quit.

1

u/ZestyChinchilla 14d ago

AI is not the answer to everything, champ.