McMaster University Creates Open Source eHealth Records System

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org>

| No, if you design it (rather than evolve it) then it should be not a
| piece of crap at the start.  Recovering a piece of crap into a working
| system hardly ever happens.  You just end up with a bloated useless
| bigger piece of crap.

That is mostly true.  At least I want to believe it.

There are cases where communities have put in enough work to get
useful results out of crap.  It offends my sence of what is right and
proper, but it does happen.

The amount of effort put into DOS / Win 3.x / Win 9x / Win NT... was
disproportionate to the results, but results there were.

Also: sometimes an artifact like that system can nucleate a community
and the community can go on to do good things.

Both these quibbles are long shots and don't actually disagree with
you.

| Besides anything written in java can't be rescued without a rewrite in
| a useful efficient language.

Are you sure?  That seems like a strong claim.  Not that I'm a Java
fan -- I've been resisting learning it since slightly before it was
released to the world.

Do you feel the same way about C#?



Here's a link to an article from yesterday's Globe and Mail.  I don't
think that a realistic analysis is possible for a reporter.
 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/oscar-shows-electronic-health-system-doable/article1320727/
(I don't know when that link will cease to work.)
It does touch on the issue of open source.
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