[Gnumed-devel] (no subject)

[syan tan]

What the perssimists are saying:
from  The_Myth_of_self-describing.pdf

The GP system might store demographics as:-
     firstname
     lastname
     middle initial
     street number
     suburb/town
     postcode
     employment status

No amount of XML formatting is going to make these systems 
interoperable. The business
logic at each end needs to change. They both need to conform to a common 
conceptual
model. Even though the GP might be able to, the GP system cannot simply 
"understand"
XML messages of the form :-
     <name>"Rev. Eric Browne"</name> <address_line_1>"c/o
     Bournemouth Caravan Park"</address_line_1> <address_line_2>
     "Camden South"</address_line_2>
     <employment_category>"baker"</employment_category>


Sounds like a load of monopolistic,  reactionary hogwash. If you can 
create a specific parser that can parse the fields into the other 
fields, do any searches necessary to fill in implied information (  
Camden South    +  implied country -> postcode ,  baker -> employment 
status = employed)
and also if the target system's record might have a extra info field for 
raw data (e.g. source_raw_data) or even add another separate table ( 
e.g. translations  tablename,  pk_value, source, raw_text )  ,   than 
such a parse should be able to exist in xml  - e.g. one can write a
Turing machine in xsl  ( see  "Stupid things One can do with XML") , and 
a Turing machine
is suppose to model any general purpose computer, then a parser should 
be possible.

The argument should be -  if everyone would give up the Tower of Babel 
and just use OUR
reference model (openEHR), then heaven would be on earth, or something 
like that.
(As a logical step, why don't we all start using Esperanto).