I can assure you that the SACC would like nothing more than to avoid
placing unnecessary burdens on the user/programmer. The issue here is
whether relaxing limits like the restriction on string lengths would
break existing applications.
===
Gregory Woodhouse
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"Design quality doesn't ensure success, but design failure can ensure
failure."
--Kent Beck
On Aug 18, 2005, at 4:34 PM, James Gray wrote:
I do not think the choices are either or. I think Mumps must
continue to exist to support VistA or it will wither. That does
not mean it cannot evolve. I think it is evolving. We just aren't
paying attention. Cache is not the same as Intersystems Mumps 10
years ago. I do not know about GTM, but I bet it is not the same.
It is the VA SAC that has not evolved much at all. The hardhats
community would like for all of the breeds of Mumps to evolve in
lockstep via an MDC. I fear that is a lost cause. I think we need
to learn that the language is evolving in a different way now. I
personally think it is the SAC that needs to evolve now.
Jim Gray
----- Original Message ----- From: "Greg Woodhouse"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2005 4:47 PM
Subject: RE: [Hardhats-members] MUMPS features
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.
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