Mumps (Programming Language)

a year ago

MUMPS (Massachusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System) is an imperative, high-level programming language with an integrated key-value database.
Originally developed in 1966 at Massachusetts General Hospital for managing patient records and laboratory systems.
MUMPS is widely used in healthcare IT, including electronic health records (EHRs), with systems like Epic serving 78% of U.S. patients.
Unique feature: Integrated database language for direct, high-speed disk storage access.
History: Developed by Neil Pappalardo, Robert Greenes, and Curt Marble; first implemented on DEC PDP-7.
Standardized in 1977 (ANSI X11.1-1977) and later adopted as ISO standard (ISO 11756:1999).
Key implementations include GT.M (FIS) and Caché (InterSystems), with modern successors like IRIS.
MUMPS uses hierarchical sparse arrays (globals) for persistent storage, supporting strings and numeric subscripts.
Criticisms: Terse syntax, lack of data types, and unconventional operators (e.g., '> for ≤).
Major users: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VistA), Epic, MEDITECH, and Barclays Bank.

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