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]
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