On Wed, 11 Nov 1998, Jim Self wrote:
> I am under the impression that FreeBSD is also growing rapidly particularly
> with Systems administrators of larger intranets and ISPs.
>
> Your views seem to be shared with many people who are running large scale
> systems or systems where reliability essential.
Including Walnut Creek (cdrom.com) which is the homepage of Slackware.
Pat (Volkerding) told me once that he feels Linux is not yet ready for
the incredible traffic (hundreds of gigabytes transferred daily) on his
page. And so, the home page for slackware is powered by FreeBSD...
> I am coming from a MUMPS background and still new to Unix (although I used
> it many years ago as a student). We have just recently installed both
> Redhat Linux and FreeBSD on test systems in our shop. I am planning on
> setting up Apache (possibly Stronghold SSL secured) on one or both as an
> adjunct to the HTTP server that we implemented in MUMPS to provide a
> Netscape interface to our hospital information system.
>
> I am very taken with the Open Source ideas and thinking that I should not
> have waited so long to give serious consideration to Unix - in some ways it
> feels very familiar, like I'm coming home to a place I've never been.
I have colleagues in Education and other disciplines who are NT guys.
They sometimes remark that it seems that anyone they've ever known who
used unix became `fanatical' about it. I smile and nod.
My hospital runs MUMPS on Digital Unix - and - a commercial <very expensive>
app called `Compucare' which is penned for General Medicine. Because this
app is apparently unaware of the existence of Psychiatry, we develop our
applications inhouse. Initially, we ran PROGRESS on Novell UnixWare.
I have prevailed in convincing my superiors to move to OSS code. (We have
a very forward looking VP for Program Development who loves the politics
of OSS.)
We now run PostgreSQL (currently 6.3.2) on Slackware 3.4 (2.0.30) using
Perl5 with its DBI and DBD::Pg modules. I initially tried to develop apps
using ecpg which is the Embedded SQL in C interface but I found that perl
is simply the best language for rapid development. Some may object to
this blanket statement but I am becoming very fond of perl...
> I find myself suddenly very excited about the possibility of configuring a
> large number of diskless workstations running Netscape and a minimal
> configuration of Linux or FreeBSD to become the predominant desktop in our
> hospital information system.
My wife is given to complaining about the hours I now log...previously I
logged alot of hours keeping my UnixWare systems going (Novell was clueless
about how to do ATT src kernel hacking and I used to get kernel panicks
often.)
Then I switched to Linux/SQL. And I log even more hours. But not doing
damage control. I get to indulge my creative side... ;-)
> Yes, or both. Personally, I think that Microsoft is once more far off the
> mark in their understanding of the internet and the emerging phenomena of
> Open Source.
Absolutely. Despite Gates' preoccupation with being the superbowl MVP
every year. Or perhaps because of it?
> >Veterinary medicine, eh? Got any code? It does peek my curiosity.
> What are you looking for? You will find some code following the links from
> my sig. Most is currently M plus HTML and JavaScript and a little Java. Not
> very much of the HIS is visible at this time. Java applets will soon be
> replacing many HTML forms and/or forms elements. I am getting seriously
> interested in Perl in conjunction with Apache.
I see alot of message traffic on the postgresql mailing lists on this topic.
I am becoming interested in this, partially because Edmund Mergl, the fellow
who wrote the wonderful DBD-Pg module (which I swear by), also wrote/maintains
the apache module for Postgres. BTW! Just last evening acquired a copy
of Christianson's new epic: the Perl Cookbook. Although the coverage of
the DBI interface is scant (similar to what's contained in `Advanced Perl
Programming') the book itself is fabulous. Thank God for Tim O'Reilly.
There is a section on using curses and the perlmenu module (I work mainly
in a character environment, horrible pun intended.) Can't wait to fiddle
with this...
I'll have a look at your src...very curious about M. This curiosity increased
when, bearing in mind the general hospital's code is MUMPS, I read on this
mailing list the VA src is available for $25 on cd. I mentioned this the
other day to one of our MIS guys. He seemed disconcerted. We paid handsomely
for the compucare code...and you know, it is apparently not bug free.
Hmm...
---------- Sisters of Charity Medical Center ----------
Department of Psychiatry
----
Thomas Good <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Coordinator, North Richmond C.M.H.C. Information Systems
75 Vanderbilt Ave, Quarters 8 Phone: 718-354-5528
Staten Island, NY 10304 Fax: 718-354-5056
