DC Government: Stop Designing Proprietary (Discriminatory) Online Systems
Jul 15th, 2011 | 18 responses
DC to Citizens: Macs Not Welcome Here
The World Wide Web had as its genesis the problem of proprietary systems.
These two truisms make the District of Columbia website an affront beyond compare. The DC Corp Online system, although designed for “businesses to conduct many transactions online”, can also serve as a citizen tool for finding information about “corporate entity and status.”
If said citizen has a Windows computer.
The government of the District of Columbia has set up a system that works only with Microsoft Internet Explorer. Earth to DC officials: there is no MSIE for Macs. [I'm not going to go into standards-compliance.]
There’s a warning sign on the home page of the website, but I didn’t believe it. Not in 2011!
I created my free account and logged in. Then I clicked “search registered organizations.” Nothing. I clicked “name search.” Nothing. At that point, I looked at the foot of the browser to see the URL: run script “__doPostBack(‘ctl00$PageContent$WebSearchButton’,”). Then I looked “up”: InternetHome.aspx.
Idiots.
And I looked at the code: I could see no ASPX code, just javascript. Well, that and really really poorly written HTML (two doctypes, two head sections — 531 errors, 2 warnings for the login page).
Before you ask, my browser (Safari) has javascript enabled.
And yes, the ADA applies to the District of Columbia because it gets a ton of money from the federal government:
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and, if the government entities receive Federal funding, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, generally require that State and local governments provide qualified individuals with disabilities equal access to their programs, services, or activities unless doing so would fundamentally alter the nature of their programs, services, or activities or would impose an undue burden.
Clearly this site, by blocking not just citizens with disabilities but those using Macintosh computers, is a violation of both the spirit and the letter of the law.
Poster child for how not to run a government website.
18 Responses to “DC Government: Stop Designing Proprietary (Discriminatory) Online Systems”
They are using ASPX, need we say more?
If financial constraints & speed is a requirement, you use PHP, or JSP, nice open source system that can be deployed on Tomcat…
For the non-geek, ASP is Microsoft’s proprietary server language for making web pages on the fly. It isn’t the problem here, because the web page that it generates can be viewed on any computer. It’s simply a sign that the people making the web page are oblivious to the non-Microsoft world.
Does it work on Chrome? I agree that supporting only IE for a public website is inexcusable, especially for a government website. But I don’t necessarily think it has to work on Safari.
Not to get into a geek flame-war, but just to correct a few points. As Prof says, ASPX isn’t the problem. And when you say “looked at the code” I assume you mean client-side code (there’s no way to look at the web server code unless you hacked into their site), so yes, you’d only see HTML and javascript there. Not there there’s anything necessarily wrong with a site that’s written in mostly javascript (or ECMAScript, technically).
As for ASP.NET vs. PHP and JSP, all of those technologies have strengths and weaknesses, but ultimately if a website is slow it’s because it was coded badly. There are good ways and bad ways to do things in every platform.
My apologies, but I have to clarify what I wrote before.
The page that the ASP (Active Server Page) script is sending would work only in IE and windows, when it could have been written more generically to work with all browsers.
PHP is a server-side (open-source) language that works on multiple types of computers, and is by far more popular. That’s why using ASP is a sign of a Microsoft-centered view.
Even if the serve side app is well written, the client side will only function 100% on Windows PC’s. But the real problem is with the contractor who developed the site. In a perfect world, the server app would check to see which PC and web browser you use, and write code to work on any system. But this is also more costly…
[chuckle] It makes me think again of the big picture — Windows and Microsoft applications constitute the de facto standard (look at the market share, if you’re ignorant of this), and what someday if the federal government began running (took over, seized) Windows?
AmComp…
Better or worse, fans of Big Government?
[chuckle]
My guess is the database used for non Internet use is MS crappy version of server based DB. So if any SW company came in and were told no SUN products, Oracle or MYSQL, you’d be stuck with MS SQL Server.
just .02 as a person who only knows 1s and 0s in terms of adding up my grocery receipt, it seems it’d be good, as for ford and chevy, suzuki and harley, ram and nissan… that the gasoline at the pump works for all, regardless of all other configurations… you, know, like to make things go? lol. We have an all mac ofc since 1985 and are heavy in graphics, so it works for us. We do get the little blue box w/ ? in the center when a website is made for a system that our translators cant/dont read. But there are workarounds even for that, that work fine. Just that it takes time to power them up, and if there are alternative choices of same info elsewhere, easier, faster to go elsewhere. The one place where this is aggrivating is some of our doctors and hospitals recordskeepings are on proprietary softward programs on their end that only read for windows. Then, it’s impossible to gain entry, even with workarounds. So its back to neanderthal fax
Standardization is a good thing where it’s practical and proper.
Why reinvent the wheel or have a lot of unnecessary complexity?
We all follow the right-hand rule on the road, after all, and have similar if not identical traffic control devices with same meanings.
* * *
(On the other hand –
Related in a more general as well as occasionally specific sense:
It’s improper to try to standardize what in our system of government [federalism] shouldn’t be standardized — or I would have to ask, about the lefties who want to federalize everything and have contempt for the states and localities, What happened to diversity, y’all? That liberal hypocrisy again!
Again, one merely think and should thinkn before acting: What should be common, general, central?)
You could always use PostgreSQL.
BTW MS-SQL is a pretty good DB (Amazing what how much it looked like Sybase), it’s only issue is that it only runs on a Windows Server…
BTW, there is no reason for any government agency not to use open source software to build, maintain & serve their websites…
LAMP baby XAMPP
If you website is informational, Joomla or Drupal are perfectly fine…
DLS,
We’re talking software, not federalism…
So get off your right-wing hobby horse and stick to the subject at hand…
There still seems to be some impression that pages with the postfix ASPX are somehow incapable of running in other browsers, or that some special work needs to be done to get it to work that way. That’s just not true. A typical ASP.NET-built web application can work on any major browser. If this website doesn’t work on browsers other than IE, it’s because the developer did something wrong.
I’ll stay out of the my-pet-platform-is-better-than-yours debate, other than to push back against the “Microsoft is wrong about everything” meme. Most platforms are OK at what they were designed to do and poor at everything else.
A-Dad please show us where an open source application won’t run on a MS PC or IE. While I’m not exactly a MS hater, they do have a history of being behind both Apple and Linux with their operating system. They also bundle their product with their operating system…
Rudi, his point is simple. Any server can serve up code that runs on any platform. These people simply started with the premise that they were running on IE only (oddly enough, the page source has code for IE 5 and 6, but declare that IE 7 or above is required).
That’s perfectly legitimate for intranets in large corporations with standardized machines, but not for a public web site.
(1) adelinesdad:
Does it work on Chrome?
No it does not work in Chrome. Or Firefox. Or Safari. It works only with MSIE.
And when you say “looked at the code” I assume you mean client-side code (there’s no way to look at the web server code unless you hacked into their site), so yes, you’d only see HTML and javascript there.
Yes, AD. “View source.” Look at the HTML validation check – it’s worse than sloppy. AFAICS there was NO reason to make this MSIE-only functionally, except in the navigation call to the database (what happens when you click on the link to search the database).
(2) rudi:
But the real problem is with the contractor who developed the site.
No, the problem is with the government agency that set the specifications/requirements for the project.
(3) Dr E
just .02 as a person who only knows 1s and 0s in terms of adding up my grocery receipt, it seems it’d be good, as for ford and chevy, suzuki and harley, ram and nissan… that the gasoline at the pump works for all, regardless of all other configurations
heh. yes! Standards!
(4) adelinesdad:
A typical ASP.NET-built web application can work on any major browser. If this website doesn’t work on browsers other than IE, it’s because the developer did something wrong.
No, the burden here is not on the developer. Developers follow the requirements laid out by the clients. If the client doesn’t say, “works in all browsers” then it might not happen. If the client said, “works in all browsers” but signed off on this, the client (DC government) is still wrong. If the requirements said, “meet ADA” then the developer did something wrong.
Kathy
rudi,
I think you missed my point. I never said an open source platform would not have worked for them. I’m only arguing that it would not have necessarily been a better choice. Or, more specifically, their choice to use ASP.NET has nothing to do with the fact that the website only works in IE. (ETA: I won’t get into the OS wars, but isn’t Safari bunded with Mac?)
Kathy,
I agreed with the main point of the post, that supporting only IE is inexcusable, and I don’t dispute that the HTML and javascript is probably sloppy. I was only making a technical clarification based on when you said “I could see no ASPX code” that there is no way to see the ASPX code.
I don’t know what you mean about the navigation code either. If you are referring to the code you cited in the post, that is not IE-specific. That’s just a function call.
re #4: Yes, I meant “developer” in the broad sense as in “people responsible for building the website”, which in this case is the government, as opposed to the people who built the platform (Microsoft).
DQ, it’s a shame if you can’t flex your mental muscle when opportunities present themselves clearly. (Or is it unclear to you? Presumably you have suitable muscle.)