Re: [Gnumed-devel] Gui-Designers was the id_name debate

[Richard Terry]

You hit the nail of the head. Dead right - our brains are very different - you 
are left brained - logical - stepa>step b, I am right brained - hence I 
***struggle*** with computer logic. Still can't read man pages etc

I get continually peed of with linux because of its illogical functionality. 
The file save dialogs being a classic example. Even the newer ones, though 
looking superficially like the microsoft controls, lack some of the essential 
microsoft funcitonality (like hitting a letter and having the directories 
slide across to the directories starting with that letter).

Essentially programming bores me to tears, I only try and learn it to help the 
project along in little ways which I do quite successfully. I don't pretend 
to be a clever programmer - nor never will be one.

Interstingly I think in pictures too, and read in blocks of text - usually 
paragraphs/page not words. As my brain is not as logic based as yours when it 
comes to this stuff I have to see the connections - when reading the text I 
feel dyslexic. What I do do well is distilling complexity into simplicity.

Despite your logic - forgive my dig - gnuMed still can't load and save a 
patient and their demographic data, after many years of hard work on the 
backend - which yes, is good code, sophisticated and beyond my understanding.

The frustration for me and many others is that we want gnuMed up and running - 
and politically, at least in AU, one can envisage a situation were an 
unsatisfactory solution is imposed upon us by state legislation and needs. 
There have been many attempts to help gnuMed (remember our conference last 
year I think), offers and suggestions around project management, and these 
have come to nothing.

Despite what you say about gui-designers - I found using VB + visual designers 
in access - that it speeded up my work.

I could write VB code from top down - writing multiple routines in parallel, 
so they all came together at once. My VB Client, despite its crap code was 
written in about 6 months of my spare time  and has been in constant use 
since 1998 on a daily basis. The database has hundreds of tables and hundreds 
of queries,  yet even over that time is only about 34MB in size. My contact 
manager I wrote for the HUDGP many years ago is used in real life situations 
by dozens of people of a daily basis. When I gave them the beta of this they 
found 4 bugs - that's all. So visual design does work for some people. I 
acknowledge none of my stuff is sophisticated -but at least it is working in 
the real world.  Though you dislike me designs - the doctors who used my 
script writer in division projects bemoaned the fact that I took it away from 
them and wouldn't support it - and groan about the functionally crap software 
(MDW) that they use today.

With your progamming talents gnuMed could be buzzing.

Regards

richard




On Fri, 3 Sep 2004 07:30 pm, Horst Herb wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Sep 2004 18:55, Richard Terry wrote:
> > Now, look at the second png with the headings. Of course, you can easily
> > identify which id in which table links to which names external key in
> > which table, BUT- AS YOU ARE DOING THIS NOTICE YOUR EYE MOVEMENTS     -
> > to be able to know which id links to which you have to look up to the top
> > of the table heading and them back down to where you want to link to -
> > This is slow, confusing and a total pain - you wouldnt have to do this if
> > they were properly named.
>
> Richard,
> I continue to firmly believe that your brain and my brain are organized
> entirely different - our workflows, ways of thinking, aesthetical and
> practical perceptions simply differ.
>
> I find this utmost fascinating; especially since we both can achieve
> whatever we want with our own ways.
>
> In your concrete example, when I use a  visual designer, I arrange the
> table representations in the same hierarchical way that represents the
> underlying normalized architecture. My eyes don't flick around since
> a) I "know" which is what and where because what I see visually simply
> represents the "map" of it I have in my brain and
> b) when I read, I don't read single letters but usually whole sentences if
> not whole pages in one go - same thing with visual representation of data
> structure. I do not perceive these little entities, I see the whole picture
> and do not dissect it. I believe we perceive and process this completely
> different.
>
> That said, I can't stand the visual designers, because all they do is slow
> me down, and that substantially.
>
> This is yet another strong argument for keeping the user interface as user
> configurable (as opposed to rigidly specified) as possible, to allow for
> such differences between users (and developers).
>
> Horst
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Gnumed-devel mailing list
> address@hidden
> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnumed-devel