Re: [Gnumed-devel] Specs (was: Gnumed brochures)

[ihaywood]

Quoting Syan Tan <address@hidden>:


> early 1990s, a lot of database applications just ran sql scripts 
> as event handlers. 
Indeed, I have considering doing just that. In MySQL it would be impossible,
but in postgres you can pack all the logic into the database if you want.
(whether you should is of course another matter).

You could for instance say to a button: when pressed, you run this
stored procedure on the backend (with postgres >=8.0, parameters
are named, so the button can figure out for itself which widgets
need to be polled for data to pass in)
The procedure replies with a list of tables that need to be reloaded
and displayed by same-named widgets.

> my impression is that he finds "usabality is 99%" , and ranks
> this nonfunctional requirement as 1-5, 
> and things like maintainability, scalability, robustness, 
> self-healing rank outside 10+ because users are overworked or burnt out
> and are disgusted with having to deal with complexity encroaching
> on usability, just because perfectionist propellorheads want
> the latter. 

> actually, usability is so big , it even outranks a logical schema :-
> so long as we implement his hard won shortcut user interface interactions ,
> we can't go wrong , we could use chimps with typewriters for the backend.

In fairness to Richard, anyone seeing 40-odd patients a day like him, Horst 
and presumably yourself, you need a bloody good GUI or its just a nonstarter.

We should be able to have both, especially as much of the backend 
reliability/ACID-database type stuff is already done for us by postgres 
hackers.

> - with gnumed , the threat of project failure isn't a big enough 
> big stick to make people work together -  so what if you lose a dream
> or a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow,  that happens every day to
> everyone, and is just the norm.
True enough.


Ian