2004 Breakout Sessions

D1 Breakout Session

Dueling Hackers
James H. Harrison, Jr., MD, PhD and Paul G. Catrou, MD

“Hacking,” the art of rapidly developing small, useful computer programs can be an effective way to extend or add new features to clinical laboratory systems. These small programs can substantially contribute to laboratory workflow, reduce clerical time or enable new quality assurance activities by rapidly processing data extracted from clinical systems. Modern commercial and open source (free) programming environments offer relatively low learning curves, short software development times and quick debugging. Drs. Harrison and Catrou will simultaneously present and critique, in “point-counterpoint” fashion, their own ideas about software development in the laboratory including a survey of languages (C, C++, Java, M/MUMPS, Visual Basic, Python and Perl) and examples from their own experience. The session will finish with a demonstration of the development of a short program in Visual Basic and Python. By the close of the session, attendees will be able to:

• Understand important differences in available computer languages

• Prioritize the strengths and weaknesses of programming environments

• Understand how to begin to learn programming and the commitment required

• Find and choose online and print tutorial and reference resources

• Identify laboratory problems appropriate for small programming projects.