Gregory Woodhouse wrote:
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.
Aren't you describing any of the major software products from most companies? I don't know if any are complete rewrites, but I can't remember one trumpeting that fact. They all talk about features. After all, the nasty stuff is our job as programmers... ;-)
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 would guess that is mostly due to the architecture. In the last twenty plus years, software and hardware advancements have been so dramatic that we can architect at ever smaller levels. This permits new ways of building that one could only dream of in the 80s. Imagine what kind of buildings you can create if you have materials as light as aluminum, many times stronger than steel and cheap. Finally, stir in standards, so you can buy interchangeable parts (at least advertised so... ;-) at a decent cost. Would that make an architect think differently?
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.
But what he didn't address was making a major technology change in the process. He seemed to be talking about rewriting for the same platform, probably with the same software technology. What if you feel you must rewrite to move to a radically different technology? Some might argue that the reasons given for the move are not sufficient to dictate such a drastic step, but forget that for the moment. Presume you agree with the idea. You would have no choice but to rewrite. But not the entire thing from scratch. Do it in well controlled phases, right?
I am wondering how the introduction of Cache at all the VA sites is going to effect VistA. Cache offers many, many more features for software re-engineering than they had with DSM. So, will the national re-engineering using technology like Oracle and Java find itself in a race with local sites and VISNs that can extend M with the SQL/Java/Objects/XML support in Cache?
Interesting times.... ;-)
==== 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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