[ICS 499] Setting up shop...

My fellow colleague and I began configuring our working server this past weekend for the OVID project. Just to reiterate from my previous post, OpenVistA Interface Domain (OVID) is a Medsphere project that interfaces a layer for communication between applications and OpenVistA data. We checked out a copy on both of our machines without a hitch. The code builds successfully on both Eclipse and Netbeans, though some of the jar classes are meant to run correctly on Java 1.5.x -- class build number should be '49'. We were planning this week to speak to two other people regarding the configuration and setup of our environment. One person being a long-time Medsphere associate, Andy Pardue, and the other a head developer of the lzVistA project, Wally Cash. Although communication was a bit limited due to the Easter weekend, we were still able to get Apache's Tomcat running, OpenLaszlo installed, and the OVID code to build.

Here are some notes for the upcoming releases of the OVID project from Medsphere. I'm excited to see that they're planning on putting out a central codebase repository. It'll be interesting to see which route they'll take as a choice of their SCM system. Hopefully if we get in contact with Andy Pardue, then we'll have some say in the matter of its open release to the public.

• Create a comprehensive set of acceptance tests. Right now, our tests are spread out and not validated. Having these tests will allow us to quickly add new classes while validating current functionality.
  
• Refactor the connection logic to make it easy to choose between RPCBroker and VistaLink. RIght now, we are reliant on VistaLink. RPCBroker would be a better choice for some platforms.
• Refactor the FM logic to enable richer queries.
• We're readying the codebase to be placed in an online repository to make it easier to collaborate.

I'll be spending some time looking over examples on developing in OpenLaszlo, along with putting up the sample Patient Dashboard on our web server. In my opinion, I think we are getting off on the right foot, and it seems that it's the perfect time to hop into this project early on during its development stages. Hopefully with enough support from the community, especially from those who may benefit from this cause, we should indeed witness a strong push into the spotlight.