Conversation with Ralph Johnson, Ward Cunningham, and Tom Munnecke About Refectoring VistA

Tom Munnecke | Tom Munnecke's Eclectica | October 26, 2011

Ward Cunningham, best known as the inventor of the wiki, invited me to his home for dinner last Friday night. Ralph Johnson, a world-class leader in object oriented programming technology, pattern languages, and refactoring, happened to be his house guest. The after dinner conversation turned to a spirited discussion about how to refactor the VA VistA Electronic Health Record system, so I turned on my iPhone to record the discussion.

Ward Cunningham is also well known for his contributions to the developing practice of object-oriented programming, in particular the use of pattern languages and (with Kent Beck) CRC (Class-Responsibility Collaboration) cards. He is also a significant contributor to the Extreme Programming (Agile) software development methodology...