When you get right down to it, it's a matter of perspective. Languages evolve, and not always in a backwardly compatible way. If the "prime directive" is to be able to run some existing program (such as VistA) without modification, then you're sort of stuck. But is MUMPS a language that exists simply to run that one application? It may be just that, but if this is so, then we can hardly wonder why there isn't more interest in MUMPS as a language. As much as we may protest that the design choices made in MUMPS were reasonable, the language remains frozen in time, and increasingly unlikely to be adopted in new work. That's a shame, too, because as I've tried to argue, there is a lot to recommend it as a language. Obviously, there was a time when the community thought developing a new version of the language was the right thing to do, but that idea has been abandoned. What message does this send to the larger development community aa to the long term viability of MUMPS as a language? Realistically, it has become little more than the abstract machine upon which VistA runs.
=== Gregory Woodhouse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "Design quality doesn't ensure success, but design failure can ensure failure." --Kent Beck ------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is Sponsored by the Better Software Conference & EXPO September 19-22, 2005 * San Francisco, CA * Development Lifecycle Practices Agile & Plan-Driven Development * Managing Projects & Teams * Testing & QA Security * Process Improvement & Measurement * http://www.sqe.com/bsce5sf _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
