Mailing List Etiquette was freebsd vs. netbsd

[Aryeh Friedman]

On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 10:32 AM Chris Knipe <savage at savage.za.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 4:27 PM Aryeh Friedman <aryeh.friedman at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>> It doesn't evolve as fast you *THINK* it does for example our system
>> supports over 200 different doctor offices/practices and about 10% still
>> use Windows XP at 1024x768 and *REFUSE* to move to anything newer even
>> after being told that using anything older than Windows 8  is an automatic
>> HIPAA violation (DHS OCR [the office that oversees HIPAA enforcement] has
>> said anything that lacks active vendor support is an automatic
>> violation).   About another 20% use Windows 7 and also refuse to upgrade.
>> The console for the monitors (rarely used directly by anyone except for us
>> the programmers) is 24x80 via a USB connector.   So yes such screen sizes
>> are an issue for us.
>>
>>
>
> Apples vs. Pears.  Even XP, supports HTML email, even XP supports
> rendering emails wider than 80 characters.
>
> Some of my code is GUI, running on 7", or 14" monitors.  Nothing forces my
> -code- to be 80 characters wide.  Yes, the -rendering- is a different
> story, the -code- is not.
>

Unless some program was hard coded for it then the code is different.   In
many legacy applications such hard codings were made to maximize
performance and/or some other reason.    It is these legacy applications
that in many cases make it so the doctor's office refuses to upgrade
(usually some ancient accounting or lab management program that would cost
an arm and a leg to replace/if replaceable at all [some medical devices are
not made any more but are still in use in many doctors offices]).    Public
hospitals are even worse off in terms of funding and unless serious help
from the government is forthcoming are almost certain to be unable to
upgrade to something that doesn't require an ancient TTY 33A, DEC VT100 or
something like that to be connected (they are physically incapable of
interfacing to anything else).   A good case in point is the "new improved"
ventilators that Trump sent to Elmhurst Hospital (here in Queens) where
incompatible with the pre-HL7 EMR they had and that's why the governor had
to ask for more (and agent orange haid [Trump] refused because he has the
same "newer is better" attitude you have... oh and he is also an all around
idiot).

TL;dr -- You often have very little if any choice IRL about what tech is
actually in place and 24x80 is a universal lowest common denominator and
thus it should be kept.


-- 
Aryeh M. Friedman, Lead Developer, http://www.PetiteCloud.org