I think easy is a relative thing. For folks with a background or education based on procedural languages, a transition to another procedural language may be much easier than a transition to an OO language. And a transition to a procedural language for the modern child of OO may be much tougher than a move to another OO language. Then there's Lisp and Prolog, each really in its own category. Its more than the language, it's the abstraction the language represents. Lisp is functional and recursive, and you must approach problems accordingly to be proficient. With MUMPS you have strong string manipulation and pattern matching, tremendous overloading of functions and operators, and a different concept of truth. Perl is the only thing I've seen come close. With MUMPS its also the globals, nothing really like that out there in the mainstream. You solve problems a different way when you have sparse arrays. With VistA, its Fileman. VistA data structure is a big step away from your typical MUMPS system, and it takes a while for even a strong M developer to come up to speed.
Learning a language is one thing, being proficient in a new abstraction is another and takes time. I'd say a couple years for most people. I think I picked up Java pretty quickly, but I certainly could use a couple years experience before I'd consider myself solid. Anyway, I'm not so sure the new architecture for HEV VistA is such a huge miss. Certainly there are many advantages to M/Cache and to leveraging the M expertise VHA employs. One of the most important being that its how I pay the bills. But I don't need to enumerate the pros of M on this list. I will say that I think the success of DHCP/VistA has more to do with the framework that supports it than anything else. Fileman and Kernel allow so many possibilities. Many great applications are developed locally, or by outside vendors, or IHS, and seamlessly integrate with the national system. I think the Service Oriented Architecture of HEV may provide a similar framework once core services are in place. Anyone can build a service, and it can live on any platform, including Cache. The consumer of the service doesn't know and doesn't care. It seems to me this will allow the kind of development that has made VistA what it is today. It also seems to me that the platform most likely to support rapid development of new services is the cache system where the data already lives. Rehosting VistA applications is a tough task. Its going to take a long time, long enough for quite a lot of other things to be developed. (now donning flame proof suit) Maybe the new HEV VistA won't be such a bad thing after all. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2005 6:01 PM To: hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: RE: [Hardhats-members] BIG NEWS re HealtheVet- St. Petersburg Tim es I think M is easier to learn than many computer languages. Certainly easier than ADA, and probably easier than Java, or Delphi/Pascal. The complex part about becoming a truly proficient Vista programmer is the shear size of it, under the hood. We're talking 12,000 files, 60,000 fields, and maybe 100,000 routines. Not all well-documented, and done in many different programming styles. Old style, new style, structured, unstructured, single-letter variable names, meaningful variable names. The toughest programming job in Vista is not writing new programs, but modifying existing programs and files in a way that does not cause unexpected side-effects, because things can be so intertwined, and not well-documented, under the hood. The thing I would have liked to have seen more of, as I've watched and participated (in a small way)in the evolution of Vista over the past 14 years, is more encapsulation, more api's, and more programmer's documentation. But, all in all I think M is an excellent database platform, and I would prefer to see the VA evolve the current product, rather than move to something completely different, for a main HIS. I think they should look at commercial ancillary systems, like: cardiology, GI, eye-care, PFT, Dialysis, etc. and make it easier to integrate them with Vista, but keep and evolve the core HIS. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Gordon Moreshead Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2005 3:59 PM To: hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: RE: [Hardhats-members] BIG NEWS re HealtheVet- St. Petersburg Times Nancy, That appears to me to be a highly perceptive take on the situation that includes considerable truth as well. I would second your observations and perceptions. Gordon -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Nancy Anthracite Sent: Wednesday, April 13, 2005 1:53 PM To: hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Hardhats-members] BIG NEWS re HealtheVet- St. Petersburg Times I am afraid that part in the report that said that " VA culture inhibits "raising risks, issues, problems or differing opinions" translates into people will be risking their jobs to talk to you and be quoted. However, a search through the Hardhats archives will reveal some who have taken the chance and have spoken out on the mailing list despite knowing that it is risky to stick out your neck where others may be watching. My take on it is that the M programmers and others within the VA and on the outside are eager to have an opportunity to do what they have wanted to do but have been prevented from doing for years, which is to work on re-engineering the existing VistA, still in M, to modularize it and clean up the code to make some of the very things that management complains about regarding VistA go away. No only would that remove some of the complaints about about VistA ("it takes $1,000,000 to change a line of code") but it would make it easier to port to another language should that ever need to be done. This concept that there are not enough M programmers so it can't be done is bogus. In my experience, programmers know multiple languages and M as easy to learn as any other. If there are so few M programmers, how is it that other large M based medical record systems persist and new ones get made but the VA can't do that? I also think that many of the changes that are being made that tap into VistA to get data are supported by the programmers, maybe in the form they are in or something different, but allowing Java based programs to make use of the data in the M Database is all well and good - a multilayered architecture is not opposed by those I have discussed this with. However, there is something to the fact that the people who best know VistA are getting older and it is time to let them direct the job they are so eager to do and let them fix VistA. Maybe this will be the kick in the pants for everyone that might allow this to happen. On Wednesday 13 April 2005 02:24 pm, Joseph Conn wrote: > Any Hardhats/WorldVistA folks want to comment on this Carnegie report story > for a story I'm working on??? I've got calls into the VA for comment. > > Joseph Conn > Staff writer > Modern Physician > ModernPhysician.com > Modern Physician STAT > Heatlh IT Strategist > 312-649-5395 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Check out the NEW ModernPhysician.com, and register now for Modern > Physician Stat and Modern Physician Alert > > >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 04/13/05 11:53AM >>> > > VA faces another computer problem > By PAUL DE LA GARZA and STEPHEN NOHLGREN Published April 13, 2005 > > A report done for the administration suggests that the VA's > multibillion-dollar plan to upgrade its system is "not realistic." > > A $3.5-billion computer overhaul at veterans hospitals across the country > is poised to fail unless the Department of Veterans Affairs makes drastic > changes, according to a closely guarded government study obtained by the > St. Petersburg Times . > http://www.sptimes.com/2005/04/13/Worldandnation/VA_faces_another_comp.shtm >l -- Nancy Anthracite ------------------------------------------------------- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. 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