A balanced view of MUMPS

  • Authors:

  • Anthony I. Wasserman;David D. Sherertz

  • Affiliations:

  • Medical Information Science, University of California, San Francisco, CA;Medical Information Science, University of California, San Francisco, CA

  • Venue:
  • SIGMINI '76 Proceedings of the ACM SIGMINI/SIGPLAN interface meeting on Programming systems in the small processor environment
  • Year:
  • 1976

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.02

Visualization

Abstract

The MUMPS programming system was designed and developed to facilitate shared conversational access to a hierarchically-organized data base on a small computer. The MUMPS language, which has recently been standardized, contains features for numeric and string operations, along with a built-in file system called globals, embedded in a multiprogrammed execution environment. This paper gives an overview of the MUMPS language and a typical MUMPS system, then evaluates MUMPS in terms of modern notions of programming languages and software development. Despite the many attractive features for the development of interactive programs, MUMPS is seen to have a number of shortcomings when evaluated in this way. Among the problem areas are weakness of control structures, the ability to write self-modifying code, the incomprehensibility of most MUMPS programs, and the lack of support given by the language to notions of abstraction and modularity.