[Gnumed-devel] Re: Mirth channels and HL7 import for the GNUmed project - test source message

[David Mackenzie]

Hi Jim/Karsten

Sorry for the lack of feedback of late. No I haven't gone missing. Just had a few things on.

I have managed to do some more analysis, but still piecing everything together. Here is some early feedback.

Firstly, Mirth uses a java technology called Mule to do its asynchronous queuing and sending/receiving of messages. Mule is a complete ESB and more. I am spending most of my time ramping up on Mule and how it is used in Mirth. It does makes things considerably more complex, but I'm sure once I am more familiar with Mule, it will make Mirth a lot easier to traverse and analyse.

What I can tell you about Mirth so far is that it is not easy to follow. There are basically no comments in the code, and no supporting design documenation accompanying it. This is really poor. There are also several places where Mirth is customising some classes that are inside other jars and putting them higher in the classpath. This is a fairly common practise in java but only as a last resort after consideration of all the alternatives. The downside is, that it makes upgrading these external libraries difficult, createing a larger dependency on the specific version of these external libraries. Whilst sometimes this is unavoidable, Mirth have not offered any explanations in any of their code or documenation as to why this decision has been made, and what has changed in the customised classes. This is also poor.

Whilst I'm sure Mule will turn out to be a resonable choice of technology, I would like some Architecture documentation justifying the choice of this technology. It also does not appear as though they are using it quite how it should be used. But I will confirm this as my understanding of Mule matures. They have also customised several of the Mule classes. This is something I would like some justification for.

I notice that the Mirth website says that the documentation is coming. Is there any way you can use your WebReach contacts to get them to send it to me? This is not mandataory as the code is the best documentation, but it will help me to determine the reasons behind their choice and usage of technologies. And maybe explain why they are using Mule the way they are.

Lastly, I wanted to ask if you have heard of Argus and has this been considered as a way to send encrypted messages? I am assuming that Mirth does not encrypt any messages but I have not confirmed this. Is encrypting messages a requriement?

Regrads,
Dave.