🚀 go-pugleaf

jc@sci.kun.nl (Jan Christiaan van Winkel (ATC)) writes:
}In <1992Jul25.190427.9278@cs.cornell.edu> murthy@cs.cornell.edu (Chet Murthy) writes:
}>saleh@cse.uta.edu (Medhat Saleh AbdelHady) writes:
}>> Anybody has an idea about a language called MUMPS ? 

}>MUMPS was/is a software system for medical information
}>which was used in hospitals for patient information
}>management....

}Mumps is indeed a hospital oriented language. I don't speak mumps, but I
}know that it is a standardized (I believe ANSI!) language. As far as I
}know, it is still being used. Versions for several OS-es are available,
}even for MSDOS. possibly you can contact ANSI for more info (if it is
}indeed an ANSI standard language).

Actually, folks, the language has NOTHING in it relating to hospitals or
medicine. It just started out in that field, and in the USA has been so
extensively used in that area that some folks have pigeonholed it that way.

The reality is richer than that.  Outside the US, there is no such bias,
and it gets used for a wide variety of tasks.  Even in the US there is
considerable use in general database applications.  In fact, my very first
assignment as an independent contractor related to an application inside
General Motors, relating to manufacture of tires and batteries.  (GM had
just bought EDS and given much of their computer operations over to the
new division. These true-blue types were appalled, I guess, to find this
thing running on DEC VMS in a language they'd never heard of.  I think their
eventual aim was to replace it all with COBOL.)

It's more than a little different from mainstream languages: the only data
type is variable-length string (some of which may represent numbers) organized
in something I guess you'd think of as multi-dimensional arrays, some volatile
(in RAM) and some persistent (on disk).  It's the best marriage of language
and permanent storage I've seen short of the 4GL's.

-- 
Kevin O'Gorman ( kevin@kosman.UUCP, kevin%kosman.uucp@nrc.com )
voice: 805-984-8042 Vital Computer Systems, 5115 Beachcomber, Oxnard, CA  93035
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