Over Horgoš again.
Un 5th, this comment in catal6:
"5.9.3- solved the problem with inclusion of generated files so that they be on the run (and That only at first run with fresh set of parameters) after first execution get inserted into the Program which called catal5. The program is, true, still active, but only as .fxp - the .prg is free. into .prg an indicator is written in the first free line below the call so catal5 knows next time that it need not generate - Program which would be generated is already a subroutine in the caller program. so the generated files are not dragging on the disk, not gathering dust, just found where they are used"
Same day, gathd.prg, which collects comments from code and inserts into a table to build help from or summat, and only the comments braced with *+ and *- (which I've found later is a widely applied trick - many prominent foxers write documentation that way, and in Python the docstring is part of the language).
Also, the thing which I've seen often in medical software later: inserter of template texts. In PolC they called it negative findings (negativ leletek), so the table was named lt.dbf. In places where a longer text would be entered (e.g. diagnose comment or description of procedure performed) the frequently insert common phrases, which repeat a lot, so we came to an idea to have a special key (probably underscore) to call a list of such phrases (catal6, of course) and if the selected phrase is accepted it gets inserted into the text. It gained popularity immediately, the doctors are just verbose, the more text they can quickly produce, the better.
The other big thing, which started later in the afternoon, was the waiting room. It had two parts - finding (or entering anew) the patient, and deciding to which room to send him, which was the job of the reception desk (four simplest 386 boxes), and whatever they enter would appear in the entry form at the destination room, when opening a new case, the oldest on top. The order of entry wasn't necessarily respected, nobody but the doctor even saw this waiting list, they'd just get summoned to enter the room. The patients were already astonished that they need not carry any paper from the reception, nor to submit that paper to anyone, the system is expecting them already and knows where.
During the winter the waiting room got refined, we had 9 statuses which appeared in so many places around the app that I eventually defined them in a global array in defg.prg. It's interesting to look now at what we had there:
1 - finished
2 - sent over, waiting to be sent back
3 - returned, waits to be received again (with results - the 2-3 pair was usually for lab or x-ray)
4 - scheduled recheck
5 - sent across - which meant he's been somewhere already and there they found it's not their case, so they send the guy to a different specialist
6 - urgent
7 - sent from the gate (aka reception), now why is this a seven, well probably was zero for a while, but then we decided to give it a number
8 - previously scheduled, i.e. sent from gate or other room several days ahead; don't know why we needed this, sounds like something that wasn't used much
9 - not finished, will be called back - which we called "parked", applied to patients who got something that takes some time to work its magic - atropine for the irises, or some slower local anaesthetic, so he's parked and we're getting another patient in while this one waits.
The 2-3 pair caused quite a dismay, because átutalt, literally "sent across", was an existing expression in hungarian, which covered only the money sent via mail. And now we're sending live people. Some doctors complained... can't imagine what they'd say if they knew that I, who just a few months ago couldn't compose a sentence in hungarian, invented it. The parking was likewise a strange term to apply in this context, you park cars, not people. Within a week they all happily mentioned sent-over and parked patients. They are doctors, they just love to have a private language which will confuse the uninitiated.