Re: [Hardhats-members] MDC Revival

[A. Forrey]

On Tue, 1 Mar 2005, Greg Woodhouse wrote:
To be honest, if pressed, I'm not sure I could come up with a change in
the 1999 C standard from the original ANSI  C standard. I'd have to
look it up.
The issue in a revived MDC is not that there needs to be a great amount of 
change activity but that there is continual review and if changes are 
needed, a mechanism exist to make it expeditously and in a fashion that 
best serves the common environment. Internet communications eliminates a 
lot (but not all) face-to-face meetings but the existence of the 
organizational entity ensures uptodate commonality. This situation enables 
the education/training of users/designers/planners (otherwise known as 
customers). There is a price but there are also significant benefits for 
all stakeholders. As noted by Nancy and Rich Sowinski we must get on with 
it and Chris has noted a reasonable mechanism. The Boston Program must 
initiate the reactivation and clearly identify the Secretariat 
organization and I would like to suggest that the NEMUG has a key role in 
the reactivation effort by being an active remnant of the prior MTA/MUG 
and by being in a key center of M activity. The other regional users 
groups can easily orgganize to support a new central steward organization 
regardless of how spartan it may start out. None expect the new central 
focus to come free and the nature  and amount of  the various 
contributions must be stated. But identification of a new focus will be 
the catalytic step.

--- Terry Wiechmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Excellent points!
I would contend the MUMPS standard is complete! Putting more effort
into
it is a waste of important, limited resources that can be better used
to
advance the state of VistA, especially in the area of productizing,
support infrastructure and evolution to state-of-the-art technologies
that make it even more appealing.
Organizations choose products because they solve problems for them!
Standards are important but not essential to success!
Since the core Open VistA system was released, what new features,
packages, enhancements, etc. have been contributed by the Open Source
community to take it to the next level, that is, a whole new version?
Wouldn't it be better to concentrate on improving the state of this
important product (nationally important) rather than wasting time on
adding minor details to the underlying language?
I don't buy the argument that VistA won't be accepted because there
isn't a standards body behind the underlying technology. It won't be
accepted because it is hard to install, it is inadequately
documented,
some of the modules still rely upon a roll-and-scroll interface, etc.
These are the important priorities!
Terry L. Wiechmann
978-779-0257
Cameron Schlehuber wrote:
Why should the criteria for a "living language" be that it is
undergoing
constant change?  Do standards have to change just to be considered
"living"?  The criteria could just as easily be that it is used in a
competitive marketplace.  To my knowledge not all of the '95
standards have
been implemented by ANY vendor.  And as I understand the history,
one of the
problems that faced M seen by a few vendors in the late '90s was
that it was
being changed too drastically by the MDC, or at least that the juice
wasn't
worth the squeeze.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
Nancy
Anthracite
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2005 2:24 PM
To: hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Hardhats-members] MDC Revival
Don't you think that the VA is one big fat carrot and stick?  They
are
currently using the standard, and they may succeed in dumping M, but

personally, I think they will fail and the question is whether they
do it
before or after blowing millions if not billions in an effort to
port this
system to something else.  They should just fix what they have an
get on
with
it.  If they just quit trying to get rid of it, I think that they
will be
able to bring in new people to advance and maintain VistA, but it
they
persist in this misguided effort, they are just shooting themselves
in their
collective feet.
Being vendors of a dead language can't be good, at least not unless
you deny
what you are I guess, and you become "X" instead of M. That seems to
be an
attractive strategy that  might be reversed if the MDC became viable
again.
Hopefully, the vendors and all of the big sticks with carrots will
want to
participate in that effort.  If the VA ever sees the light, maybe
they will
participate as well.
If push comes to shove and none of the vendors want to participate,
maybe at
least an ANSI standard can exist and progress to be there for the VA
 to use
to move VistA along after the next congressional investigation
explores
where
all of that money went when the VA tried to move VistA away from M!
On Monday 28 February 2005 02:55 pm, Bhaskar, KS wrote:

I agree that from a user's perspective, having a standard makes a
technology easier to accept, sell to management, sell to the
general
public, sell to politicians, etc.
From a vendor's perspective, it costs money to comply with a
standard, and
there must be enough people who say, "If you comply with the
standard,

I'll

buy your product" (carrot) or, "If you don't comply with the
standard, I
won't buy your product" (stick).  Especially in the case of a
public
company, there is a fiduciary responsibility to the owners (the
general
public) to spend money to maximize return.
In the case of an M standard, who would proffer carrots or take a
stick to
the vendors?
-- Bhaskar




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=====
A practical man is a man who practices the errors of his forefathers. 
--Benjamin Disraeli
====
Greg Woodhouse
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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