Gregory J. Woodhouse wrote:
>
> On Thu, 23 Dec 1999, John S. Gage wrote:
>
> > I have thought about this problem a lot. Originally, I had visions of
> > physician programmers turning out
>
> Actually, that's pretty much how VistA got started. Read the whole story
> of the hardhats (a nickname for the original developers of what is now
> called VistA) and the underground railroad (as the grassroots effort to
> develop this system was known) at
>
> http://www.hardhats.org/history/hardhats.html
2 cents: Without disparaging VistA or any other previously developed system,
my judgment is that it is time to start fresh, with the newest programming
tools and higher-level languages, building on the lessons learned from
previous efforts. (This is related to the theorem that well-developed
systems become crufty and it's most efficient to translate the lessons,
algorithms, standards, and paradigms acquired in development into a
clean-slate effort.)
DJmd
