I'm quite in favor of "working with what you've got". I also believe
that it is important to start rather than wait for perfection (the
IETF motto,"rough consensus and running code" , seems particularly
apropos here). That being said, it is not clear to me why a general
purpose programming language belongs in a suite of health information
standards. Note, however that I do NOT say that general purpose
programming languages should never be standardized. What is troubling
is when those standards become frozen in time and take on a life of
their own. ANSI C was an improvement over K&R C, but the standard was
revised yet again in 1999.
But having said that, there is a fundamental difference between
programming languages and communications standards. If I decide to
"improve" 802.11g, then I may very well produce an interface card or
driver that breaks interoperability with other products. But if I
develop a new version of a programming language and a working
compiler for that language, then as long as I produce correct machine
code complying with the appropriate ABI, then anyone can run the
code. They may not use the same compiler, and may not even be
familiar with th3 language I used to write the code they are running.
But if a wireless station "speaks the wrong protocol", people wanting
to connect to it are out of luck.
===
Gregory Woodhouse
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"And the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time"
-- T.S. Eliot
On Sep 13, 2005, at 10:12 AM, A. Forrey wrote:
Greg:
Your worry is relevant and in standards work where consensus (not
unanimity) is the rule, it means that folks have to work at it
rather than "waiting for Godot". The reason that the MDC was
succesfull was that there was wide participation, interest, and
activity; I believe that that still can be the case. Part of the
effort is educating folks on what standards developement is all
about - and its not about sitting around letting others do the work
so you can get "free lunch". The MUMPS community needs to re-
educate its constituents about that point and to provide
mechanmisms for them to participate. Chris Richardson has ideas
about using the more recent means to achieve waht we used to by
onsite meetings (which can be useful and not entirely discarded).
The world has re-acquired some of the "citadel mentality" of Troy/
Mycenae (circa 1200BC) as is paying the prices for either dictating
from the citadel or passively accepting it wating fro Free lunch
(There is and never was any Free Lunch so we have to reaffirm that
regulalry). De Facto mandates result from look for free lunch. I
think much better of those who have been in the MUMPS Community and
it stems from Octo Barnett who started it all. We just need to get
up a head of steam and stand out! An we then wont be hemmed in.
On Tue, 13 Sep 2005, Gregory Woodhouse wrote:
That's a good point. Personally, I think Ada is an underrated
language (Tony Hoare's famous comment, notwithstanding), but the
idea that its use should be mandatory for mission critical
applications is quite different from its standardization. Even so,
standards have a way of becoming de facto mandates, which is
unfortunate because the end result is that people are afraid of
developing standards for fear of being tied to an immutable
standard that no longer fits their needs.
===
Gregory Woodhouse
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"A hero is no braver than an ordinary
man, but he is brave five minutes longer."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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