On Jan 15, 2006, at 7:01 PM, Stephen Hay wrote:
Thanks to all who responded,
I feel a little better now.
I guess part of the issue is that there are two issues, for me.
One is easily addressed by pointing people to the vendors who are
using MUMPS in their applications. But I'm really interested in the
open source aspect...
I once came across an interesting statement "The most profound
technologies are those that disappear..." I don't even recall what
point Mark Weiser was making here, but that really stuck with me.
Technologies can disappear in a lot of ways: in some cases, they may
inspire later innovations rendering them obsolete. But there's
another kind of "disappearing", too, and that's becoming invisible!
You may not be aware that a product is based on MUMPS, but that is a
sign that the technology is doing its job well, not that it is
unneeded or inadequate. It is when the technology is no longer up to
the task that it starts to become visible.
The other concerns the programmers who might be needed to support
that open source application. New Zealand being what it is, there
would need to be "local" support. By default, you have that in
North America. Here, that means finding programmers willing to work
with MUMPS. And I guess part of the issue I'm facing is that this
forum seems to be the place for programmers.
I hope so.
Now, could I send a programmer here as the "programmers community"
and not have them frightened off? Or am I seeing things that don't
exist? Is this what Greg was referring to in the post that
triggered this one???
That was part of it. Another issue is that the majority of people
active here are health care professionals. That's natural enough, of
course, but I can't help but wonder how the barriers to entry can be
reduced a bit, making it easier for software professionals to become
involved. There are many highly competent engineers and computer
scientists lacking the health informatics expertise that is really
needed here (or so it seems), and I was wondering out loud how we
could attract more people with a computer science background. I think
that's important, and something we haven't really addressed.
Thanks again to all, it is looking better than it was a few hours
ago and I'm sure it'll get better still...
Cheers,
Stephen
===
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
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