K.S. Bhaskar on 20 Mar 2007 21:25:19 -0000


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Re: [PLUG] Educational Languages

  • From: "K.S. Bhaskar" <bhaskar@bhaskars.com>
  • To: "Philadelphia Linux User's Group Discussion List" <plug@lists.phillylinux.org>
  • Subject: Re: [PLUG] Educational Languages
  • Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2007 17:25:15 -0400
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Why not M[UMPS]?

Strengths:
  1. Language and database are included.  Strings and associative memory are part of language.
  2. Conceptually simple, but features needed for real world applications, e.g., error trapping, database recovery after crash.
  3. Real world (the world's largest banking and healthcare information systems are based on MUMPS).
  4. GPL'd Linux implementation (http://sourceforge.net/projects/sanchez-gtm ) can be made into live CD (use USB flash drive for rw storage) or QEMU virtual machines (see examples at http://sourceforge.net/projects/worldvista).  Excellent Programmers Guide.
  5. Clean support for Unicode in V5.2-000.
  6. Integrates well with surrounding environment (e.g., to write a service to deploy under inetd/xinetd).
Features (whether strength or weaknesses is a matter of taste):
  1. Dynamic typing.
  2. Dynamic variable scoping.
Weaknesses:
  1. No support for encapsulation / information hiding.
  2. Spaces in source code are syntactically significant.
I'll gladly answer any questions about it.  Disclosure of interest: I manage GT.M, the implementation of MUMPS available under GPL from Source Forge.

-- Bhaskar

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