Leo Ramakers wrote:
>
> > > the next dentistry software being written by dentists:
> >
> > This is incorrent because it presupposes that a dentist is the best
> > person describe a dentistry practice
>
> But surely he is?
Probably. However the sole practice dentist is probably well-served
by < $10K off-the-shelf software. It is the nationwide dental chain
which requires outside "experts" on modelling the business and custom
software. Wouldn't that always imply the existence of a programmer of
some sort? In this case, would spreadsheet macros be programming if it
was full-time and sole focus?
And where does Open Source then figure in this? Is it entirely
irrelevant, other than it might save the dentist $5K, and the same end
result will be accomplished no matter the license (GPL vs Click-thru).
Or is Open source the method by which we get from here (programmers)
to there (dentists with spreadsheets)?
Does open source change the market enough that the "economies of
scale" (using devil words) disappear to the small player : the
local dentist has the same (free) access to business tools (Python 2095
and Star-Office 2098 rather than $2500 worth of Delphi and enough
knowledge to use it well) as the global chain - and perhaps
buys a select few names off the same Colmar-Brunton/BayCorp db as the
nationwide chain uses, to target his marketing to?
> In my experience you ask most people about their businesss and they
> will give you long convoluted rerason why it can't be systemised
Is this the manager of that business or the owner?
And why don't they consider their accounts, and their internal
"systems" - certain ways of doing say petty cash, staff salaries etc
as a particular implementation model?
If they can't see how it can be systemised and/or made more efficient
(by whatever parameter, and using computers or not) they must have the
ultimate locked-in "license to print money" market - perhaps cocaine?
> Some of us are pretty good at that and find it increasingly
> irrelevant. We are facing price concious buyers who would rather pay
> a little for something now than a lot for something latter maybe. Our
> high end people (e.g. IBM) are sabotaging our reputations with
> megabuck screwups (INCIS) based on the old waterfall model. We are
> finding increasingly valid hueristics such as the iterative build
> processes (the spiral development in preference to the
> waterfall model).
Whatever methods used by IBM, surely their problem was that they
didn't "eat their own dogfood" - the system they used to model
a "project" was outdated and slow to change. So their problems could
have been fixed - or rather: improved - by having a better process for
dealing with the govt. ie IBM stuffed up a part of the project, but
that part still had to be done by someone, and even though they didn't
finish, they still got much closer to doing so than the Gov. or the
Police would have on their own. And probably the project failed
because of the too many chiefs in the Govt who were committed to
their own issue, rather than the best way of modelling the system as
a whole : which will always happen unless there is someone who's
"issue" is Modelling the System the best way possible.
> The secret to your system modeling skills is a cyclic process of
> RAD-deploy-trial, RAD-deploy-trial, in a spiral fashion. System
> modelling in the big bang model fails because the user behaviour is
> changed by the system that is applied. There is no process that
> allows system modelling to anticipate how the user will adapt his
> work to the new model.
True, but with Incis as an example, wouldn't it be fair to say that
sometimes the user (ie the local bobby) has no say in the new model,
and will be (attempted to be) forced to change to the new model
(Hmm: was that another reason for failure: no matter how much the
"bosses" (in this case ministers) dictate, if users don't want or like
a new system, you can't even force them?)
> Given this, there is no
> reason why the dentist cannot mold the product. And the end result
> will be exactly right for the dentist, but will be fundamentally
> different to the model of the dentistry requirements one would
> create at the beginning.
As above, there is a case - the most often one (?) - where the
reason that the dentist cannot mould the product is that his manager
wants it to go in one direction, and his manager wants it to go
in another, and the accountant wants it cheaper etc. And the people
who can get closest to the users level are system modellers -
analysts, developers or software engineers of some kind.
>
> Leo
Cheers.
Kurt.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
New Zealand Delphi Users group - Delphi List - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Website: http://www.delphi.org.nz
To UnSub, send email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
with body of "unsubscribe delphi"
