The MUMPS programming language, also known as M, was specifically designed for use in healthcare and has a long history. It is the basis for the Veterans Administration VistA software as well as many other commercial healthcare applications. Because of its unique properties, it is used in banking as well. Open source bindings to CORBA exist (see below) and a complete open source M compiler, GT.M, is available on Sourceforge. There is much activity surrounding M in healthcare, perhaps more now that there is a Free/Open Source M compiler available. Read on for links to books and resources for programming in M
The hardhats maintain a comprehensive web page of M links here. Thanks to Chuck Link for the pointer to this.
KS Bhaskar, recent recipient of the 2002 Linux Medical News Software achievement award writes: ‘A good book for M programming is: Walters, Richard F. M Programming: A Comprehensive Guide. Digital
Press, 1997. ISBN: 1555581676. In the US, Amazon lists it for $39.95 and claims to be able to ship it in 24 hours. An advanced online reference is Ed de Moel’s MUMPS By Example http://jacquardsystems.com/Examples, but don’t look to it as a tutorial.’
Alexander Caldwell of tk_family_practice writes: ‘The documents that come with GT.M from source forge are very good for installing it and getting an overview of how the database works, and how a system administrator would maintain it, but without something like this you won’t get far past just getting it installed: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/7041/mwm999/mwm.html
start with the MWM001 link and look for the “teach you, teach me” link…
KS Bhaskar further writes: ‘There is plenty of M expertise Down Under, and there is even an
implementation of M developed in Australia that just went open source
(http://mumps.sourceforge.net)…Open source nuts and bolts for connecting to VistA with CORBA exist: esiobjects.sourceforge.net and while a binding to VistA has not been released yet, perhaps one will emerge in 2003…’