Gee...I usually agree with him on software engineering issues, but it
strikes me as rather odd to say that rewriting code from scratch is the
worst thing you can do because it is harder to read to code than to
write it. From a business perspective (i.e., time to market and such)
he has a point -- in the short term. But in the long term, the growing
maintenance and extensibility problem of old, patched and many times
re-patched code will always come back to bite you. I think that one
thing we are all coming to appreciate is that adapting VistA to new
situations, or simply extending it, is no easy task. Why? We can argue
that an EHR is a complicated animal (and it is), but it is much harder
than it should be! I agree with the last few paragraphs of this article
where he argues that the types of problems he describes are symptomatic
of architectural problems. And in that sense, I agree with a caveat:
simply rewriting your code is likely to be an (expensive) exercise in
futility -- unless you address the architectural shortcomings of your
code in the "rewrite". So, okay, maybe Joel is right that rewriting
code is a major strategic error, but I would argue that failing to
write new code that adequately addresses the shortcomings of the
existing code base is equally a major error.
====
Gregory Woodhouse
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Apr 4, 2005, at 7:20 AM, steven mcphelan wrote:
I thought you might find this article interesting.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html
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