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What would you say is the "resident innovative force in computing" now?

I'm a little confused by the reference to healthcare.gov: if Big Web is not the right paradigm to handle a... big web site, then what is?

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Perhaps I disagree with the implied assumption that a big web site was the answer. I don’t have an answer for you beyond that, because step one is challenging the increasing belief that Big Web has computing figured out and we need not evaluate the decisions and foundational technologies and delivery models that have led to where we are. Step one is a mountain, as you can imagine, and it’s possible to start the conversation of climbing it with only a handful of ideas of what could be over it. Many smart people with quadruple my intelligence and foresight have toed these waters throughout computing’s history. They just lose to hype and marketing.

I realize that’s an underwhelming answer, but if we asked that everyone who disagreed with the status quo simultaneously proposed a perfect solution to fix it, we would be nowhere in any sense. I assure you that thinking about the answer to your question is a significant part of my life, and talking to people who use computers to shape that thinking is key. Government was largely responsible for setting the computing agenda and spurring all of the right technologies in the beginning, and I believe there is merit to revisiting that thinking rather than ceding computing to engineers on the West coast.

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