I have been an Mumps programmer for 15+ years, outside of the VA, however I first learned the language at the VA (as part of a work/study program).
One of the problems, new programmers, can be solved by the VA, or any other M shop. Many universities and colleges now requires a senior project of their students. Contacting local collages to have 1 or more students work at the VA as part of a work/study program would allow more new programmers to learn M. They would be learning M and doing some programming during thier senior year as the senior project. This will expose more people to M and create a new talent pool for the VA to hire. It would also help the students start thier resume and have work references before leaving school. M has always been unique, not being taught in school, but in a mentoring environment. It would be a shame to throw away the culture that makes this language so unique, instead we should use it to grow and expand. Additionally, many programmers out there that use M are probably unaware of this discussion.(Quest, Kaiser Permanente, Labcorp) These programmers should be drawn in and included in the revival of MDC. That way it is not just VA specific and will meet the needs of a wide variety of institutions. Marcia ------ Original Message ------ Received: Wed, 02 Mar 2005 11:25:09 AM EST From: Aylesworth Marc A Contr AFRL/IFSE <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "'hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net'" <hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net> Subject: RE: [Hardhats-members] MDC Revival Mumps is not hard to learn. There is no motivation to learn a language in school or other places unless it is going to be useful, face it Mumps is a niche language for writing databases. There is no reason for newer developers to learn Mumps so there is no reason for schools to teach it. When I went to a training class for Mumps 3-4 yrs ago there were 4 students and three of them were from the VA and wanted to learn Mumps so they could extract info out of Vista to put it into a relational DB like SQL2000. The developers are going to use what they know and right now there is no push from anyone to change. Thanks Marc Aylesworth C3I Associates AFRL/IFSE Joint Battlespace Infosphere Team 525 Brooks Rd Rome, NY 13441-4505 Tel:315.330.2422 Fax:315.330.7009 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Greg Woodhouse Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 11:08 AM To: hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: RE: [Hardhats-members] MDC Revival Oh, that's easy: MUMPS is hard to learn because 2+3*4 = 20. :-) Can you think of even one other language (using infix notation, that is) where this is true? (Okay, okay, I don't know MIIS, but it might be an exception.) --- "Sowinski, Richard J." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > When did everyone get so dumb ? You learned M. I learned M. When did > it all > of a sudden get so difficult to learn it ? > Are you saying we were smarter than the upcoming generation ? I don't > think > so. > > The real problem with Vista right now is not the language. It is the > shear > size of it, and the rat's nest of poorly documented code > under the hood, which is the result of years of patching already > patched > code. I liken it to a huge wad of gum. > > A redesign in M is as valid as a redesign in any other language. In > fact, it > would be much simpler. VA already has the installed base, > and the in-house expertise. > > We'll find out 10 years from now (maybe) when the current redesign is > finished, how well it works , and how many people it takes to > support it. > > Oh yeah, by the way, outsourcing has worked really well. CoreFLS was > a grand > success. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of > steven > mcphelan > Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2005 8:06 AM > To: hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net > Subject: Re: [Hardhats-members] MDC Revival > > > I believe Cameron's statement about the VA management not being able > to back > off of migrating to a newer platform is probably very close to the > truth. > However, I am sure that there were some real business management > decisions > made (or at least I hope so). I saw an article recently that > estimated that > 40-50% of the current VA IT staff will be retiring in the next 5 > years. If > I was a manager of VA IT I would be very concerned about that. I > would > seriously consider moving my technology to a platform that enables me > to > recruit competent IT staff without having to rely on in-house > training for > the next generation of VA IT support. I would even consider > technology that > is inferior to my current technology as long as the new technology > meets my > needs and gives me greater flexibilty in personnel matters or provide > me the > opportunity to competitively outsource some IT functions. > > ===== A practical man is a man who practices the errors of his forefathers. --Benjamin Disraeli ==== Greg Woodhouse [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------------------- SF email is sponsored by - The IT Product Guide Read honest & candid reviews on hundreds of IT Products from real users. Discover which products truly live up to the hype. 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