Greg;
Not to quarrel with what youve said but my point is (and has been) that
that Common conventions (standards) are needed at all levels and if they
are relavant and are to be referenced then the they need to exist and be
current. We need standards about all of these compoents of a health
information architecture. M is a key infrastructure convention for Vista
and it needs to be kept current if its is to be referenced. There are many
other standards that complement M, including those for conceptual contant
(e.g. termiunilogy, models, etc). Elements of the VistA Community need to
be active in these efforts which include messaging, technical
infrastructure etc. The notice about the ONCHIT effort is just a reminder
about the scope of waht will be needed to keep VistA current and relevant.
To the extent that we can benefit from what the VA, IHS and DoD are doing,
fine, but if they are not doing what will be needed for the general
constituents of VistA then we need to work at that. The MDC is just one
building block that has been neglected, I am sure that there are others
but all will be needed. We just need to talk about who is doing what and
keep working.
On Tue, 13 Sep 2005, Gregory Woodhouse wrote:
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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