More faulty UK Post Office IT wrecks lives

https://news.sky.com/story/post-office-scandal-new-concerns-raised-over-second-it-system-used-in-branches-13067813

29 9 2 years ago

news.sky.com

Another British postmaster comes forward. He had been given bravery awards for confronting two armed robbers, but ended up selling his wedding rings and living in a caravan because misplaced belief in faulty software.

tentacleuno• 2 years ago

I really don't get how they keep getting away with this -- this is one of the worst systematic failures I've ever seen.

phone8675309• 2 years ago

It's the _royal_ post office

The royals don't keep going because their subjects think they're fallible.

citrin_ru• 2 years ago

Post Office officials knew about flaws for year but decided to cover up and continue with prosecutors. It was belief in impunity, not software.

aiisdoomed2• 2 years ago

People need to understand that all software made in the uk is like this. It takes two to three of them to make something in a so called agile setting that achieves nothing but talk and tests for all the wrong things. People lose money, orders, and in some cases their lives and freedom.

Discordian93• 2 years ago

Same as in Spain, I've worked at some of the body shops where these things are made, I was a very junior programmer and they assigned me to work on very critical systems, and any suggestions of implementing unit or integration tests, or of doing code review with a more experienced dev who understood the code base better were just laughed out of the room, we were just supposed to close as many "issue" tickets as possible within the least possible time, and bugs were a feature of for the shop since they could just bill more to fix them in the future.

aiisdoomed2• 2 years ago

implementing unit or integration tests, or of doing code review with a more experienced dev

Problem is that all that is done in the UK, but tests cover all the wrong things and assert wrong values, and these "experienced" devs are the devs that usually pushed for wrong tests and practices. Guaranteed the post office had unit tests, but they tested everything the wrong way. Lack of skill and passion can't be compensated by practice. If everyones goes to their office to churn out features and clock in then you end up with crap.

The Post Office, HMRC, NHS, Home Office, DVSA, DVLA, Ofstead, all suffer from similar issues, as do private entities.

But at least they are all hybrid or on site so they can pretend to work by doing cheap talk and playing petty politics. British made software is like Soviet made cars.

More faulty UK Post Office IT wrecks lives

Related Stories