oship-dev team mailing list archive

[Tim Cook <timothywayne.cook@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Randy,

I do not know that OpenMRS has moved away.  I was only consulting with
them when they were initially interested in multi-level modeling.  As
far as I know they thought the move was too complex.

Why I say that EAV is unsustainable is the same reason I say that a
typical data model is unsustainable.  Your entire application is model
dependent to a level that when your model changes; previously recorded
data (think in terms of decades) is no longer valid within the
application. It is a given that healthcare is a continuously change
landscape.

Now, multi-level model applications are also model dependent. However
the difference is that using a constraint based approach allows you to
use a very "loose" software level dependency and transfer with the data,
the semantic context (in terms of constraint definitions) in which the
data was recorded. This gives a much longer term (hopefully forever but
we cannot guarantee that because we cannot know the full extent of the
future) durability and validity of the recorded data. 

Kind Regards,
Tim 

PS. I have taken the opportunity to CC this to our developers mailing
list. There is also a Users list at oship-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx if
you would like to post more questions there.  We are very open and
inclusive community and believe fully that knowledge at whatever measure
should be captured in more places than two people's machines.  :-)

  
On Fri, 2010-07-02 at 10:57 -0400, Randolph Neall wrote:
> Hi Tim,
>  
> OK, maybe there was a misunderstanding. But what you now say is
> interesting. Why is EAV unsustainable? What caused OpenMRS (which I
> studied at one point) to switch away from EAV? What were the issues? I
> am VERY interested in your response.
>  
> Thanks,
>  
> Randy
> 
> 
> On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 8:49 PM, Tim Cook <timothywayne.cook@xxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>         
>         Hi Randy,
>         
>         Maybe I misspoke or there was some other misunderstanding.  I
>         have no
>         belief that EAV is a sustainable solution.
>         
>         The comment may have been regarding my attempts to help the
>         OpenMRS team
>         move from EAV to multi-level modeling?
>         
>         Regards,
>         Tim
>         
>         
>         
>         --
>         ***************************************************************
>         Timothy Cook, MSc
>         Project Lead - Multi-Level Healthcare Information Modeling
>         http://www.mlhim.org
>         
>         LinkedIn Profile:http://www.linkedin.com/in/timothywaynecook
>         Skype ID == timothy.cook
>         Academic.Edu Profile: http://uff.academia.edu/TimothyCook
>         
>         You may get my Public GPG key from  popular keyservers or
>         from this link http://timothywayne.cook.googlepages.com/home
>         
> 

-- 
***************************************************************
Timothy Cook, MSc
Project Lead - Multi-Level Healthcare Information Modeling
http://www.mlhim.org 

LinkedIn Profile:http://www.linkedin.com/in/timothywaynecook 
Skype ID == timothy.cook
Academic.Edu Profile: http://uff.academia.edu/TimothyCook

You may get my Public GPG key from  popular keyservers or    
from this link http://timothywayne.cook.googlepages.com/home

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