from Hacker News

MUMPS

by surprisetalk on 6/13/25, 8:52 PM with 71 comments

  • by skissane on 6/13/25, 9:13 PM

    The core idea-a language with a built-in persistent key-value store-is actually pretty cool.

    The classic implementation is filled with horrible warts, although arguably many of them were helpful in squeezing a production multiuser system into the tiny resource constraints of the original 1960s implementation platform (18-bit PDP-7, same machine as Unix was birthed on, although Unix soon moved to the 16-bit PDP-11, which was in practice more spacious)

    Modern implementations make many of those warts optional, although they still support them for backward compatibility

    The biggest problem with the language in practice is that many major code bases (e.g. VistA) are still predominantly written in the legacy extremely terse coding style rather than a more modern readable style. I do wonder why there isn’t more effort put into migrating to a more modern style, especially since with the kinds of tools we have nowadays that migration could be (at least partially) automated.

  • by EvanAnderson on 6/13/25, 9:00 PM

  • by zeruch on 6/13/25, 9:37 PM

    I learned MUMPS years ago at UC Davis (Dick Walters, one of the language maintainers, was tenured there) and I found it a really interesting, but deeply weird language. Walters himself was a considerate, patient dude with me, struggling to deal with at the time a truly strange beast.

  • by telecomhacker on 6/13/25, 9:20 PM

    Part-time MUMPS programmer here for a health system in NYC. I still love writing in it. The rates are way better than other eco-systems (e.g. Python, Java, blah blah) , probably because the eco-system isn't diluted with low-wage workers from India/China. This is because 95%+ of Epic/Ex-Epic employees are American. I would even argue it is the patriotic language of choice due to that reason.

    Expected pay of 85-120/hour, which pays way more than my full-time job. It's a fun language to write in, and the adrenaline rush you get when you get a triple index loop working is awesome.

    Also random fact - according to Epic HR , the average college GPA of Epic employees was 3.5, which is probably the perfect formula in hiring loyal corporate servants. I always thought it was weird that I had to apply with my transcripts and resume.

  • by kiernanmcgowan on 6/13/25, 9:05 PM

    Hey there to all the EPIC kids poking their head in this thread. Where did you all end up post-EPIC?

  • by roywiggins on 6/13/25, 9:29 PM

    Feast your eyes on Caché Server Pages. Mumps on the web.

    https://docs.intersystems.com/latest/csp/docbook/DocBook.UI....

  • by cmrdporcupine on 6/13/25, 9:20 PM

    These kind of hierarchical / network database systems are what caused E.F. Codd to tear his hair out and write https://www.seas.upenn.edu/~zives/03f/cis550/codd.pdf

  • by jaybrendansmith on 6/14/25, 12:04 AM

    Way back in the day, while bored at my SaaS MUMPS support job, I wrote a version of the 'artillery' game in MUMPS, complete with graphics and explosions. I still wish I had that code somewhere :)

  • by robertclaus on 6/14/25, 4:10 PM

    The description of MUMPS always misses what working with it directly is actually like (at least for me). It feels more like a custom OS than a programming language. Code being stored alongside data so changes apply live in the system, writing schemas and indexes by hand, and the difficulties combining it with other standard programming tools make it a fairly unique experience in 2025.

  • by lowmagnet on 6/13/25, 11:09 PM

    I used to convert data from a mumps system to a cobol based one 30 years ago. Fun times

  • by dang on 6/13/25, 9:59 PM

    Related. Others?

    A Case of the MUMPS (2007) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36268931 - June 2023 (109 comments)

    M, or MUMPS is a procedural language with a built-in NoSQL database - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19388048 - March 2019 (2 comments)

    MUMPS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18936990 - Jan 2019 (6 comments)

    Isn't There a Vaccine for MUMPS? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17898927 - Sept 2018 (2 comments)

    Introduction to the Mumps Language (2017) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16309237 - Feb 2018 (42 comments)

    The Mumps Programming Language - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13859961 - March 2017 (178 comments)

    MUMPS Instance - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13618649 - Feb 2017 (1 comment)

    Ask HN: Encryption and Security in MUMPS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13542953 - Feb 2017 (4 comments)

    50 year old NoSQL DB that is better than MongoDB - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12791425 - Oct 2016 (2 comments)

    MUMPS, the Archaic Health-Care Programming Language - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9895311 - July 2015 (49 comments)

    I am a MUMPS programmer – Ask me anything - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6312391 - Sept 2013 (68 comments)

  • by paxys on 6/13/25, 9:05 PM

    > First appeared 1966; 59 years ago

    That's honestly impressive. Though I don't envy people who have to work on this stuff.

  • by UltraSane on 6/14/25, 1:03 AM

    I worked at Epic the EMR company that probably has written more lines of M than any other company. Their EMR suite is the most popular in the US. They have a very high ratio of testers to programmers and I always wondered if this is because their ancient M code base is very brittle.

  • by mandevil on 6/13/25, 9:05 PM

    Looks like someone just got hired to work at Epic!

  • by clabretro on 6/13/25, 10:12 PM

    Great hands on video with MUMPS: https://youtu.be/Ij9k7EQ5AZQ

  • by hellojesus on 6/14/25, 5:44 AM

    I just heard about it for the first time today on the Primeagen post where TJ mentioned his first job was at Epic where he used Mumps. I assume that is how this came about timing-wise.

    https://youtu.be/_CwpzZ8AVio

  • by JohnDeHope on 6/14/25, 12:08 PM

    This was the first programming language I got paid to code in. It really did look like line noise. Good times.

  • by larodi on 6/17/25, 3:21 PM

    My mother used to program this DB when she was pregnant with me in the 1980s. But it was a stolen version for the communist block, known as ДАИМС, and they actually shipped an EHCR system, which must've been like 40 years ahead of its time. Then СССР collapsed and all dev went down. Sadly, she didn't continue pursuing a careering in programming.

  • by niemandhier on 6/15/25, 12:24 PM

    This has some similarities to SAPs ADAP.

  • by moomin on 6/13/25, 9:49 PM

  • by exizt88 on 6/13/25, 9:06 PM

    > OPERATORS: No precedence, executed left to right, parenthesize as desired. 2+3*10 yields 50.

    How do you even come up with this?