How true it is that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing! The reader from Tucson is obviously mistaking the MUMPS he 'knows' from the seventies with the completely different language it is today. Sure, it's early incarnations didn't enforce the tidiest code, but only an ignorant person would advise you against a new BMW because he didn't like the Ford Model T! Since Intersystems have taken MUMPS over the language has seriously matured into what is today - now known as CACHÉ. It can fully integrate with Java (which is NOT a database language by the way), and one can develop extremely powerful web-enabled, object-oriented database applications with very little code at all! Moreover, it is easier to maintain than many other languages I know. I suggest he should, like you dear reader, take a look at CACHÉ (the 'Best New Database of 1998' according to Deloitte and Touche) and discover how you can speed up your existing SQL database applications by a factor of 20... Read more

Speaking from the standpoint of a professional MUMPS programmer, I would like to point out that I originally learned MUMPS using only this book and the source code of the MUMPS-based operating system used at my place of work. I come from a background of C/C++ and ASM programming and found this book to be more concise, more readable, and far easier to understand than almost any other programming guide that I've ever owned or read.
That said, I'll move on to the poorer points of the publication: firstly, this book is not altogether complete in its presentation of aspects of the language. While most of the basic functions and commands are covered in decent detail, the book does not see fit to include some of the more advanced (and useful) ways of utilizing them, although some of these methods are covered in partial detail in the second portion of the book -- which brings me to my second bone of contention.
The book is divided into two logical sections: the definitions of the... Read more

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