3 ms·

The upcoming Finnish patient information system will apparently be written in mumps. The total estimated cost of the system is 1.8 billion euros.

by nawitus 12y ago

jacquesm 12y ago
That, for want of a better word is absolutely incredible. I keep using that word and I think I know what it means but really, what were they smoking? MUMPS (har har) has it's origins in the medical world so there are a lot more people versed in mumps in that world that have domain expertise regarding hospitals but you'd hope that that chapter of the Cambrian explosion in programming was closed by now and that someone would come to their senses and would say: absolutely no more new development in MUMPS. (And 'Mapper' for that matter.) They were dead-ends 30 years ago, they're not magically going to be better in 2015. Of course it would be hard to get rid of 1.8B euros using any other available technology so maybe that's were we can find part of the answer of why this happened. Maintaining MUMPS code is an interesting exercise in pasta consumption, the language more or less dictates it. See also: http://thedailywtf.com/articles/A_Case_of_the_MUMPS http://thedailywtf.com/articles/A_Case_of_the_MUMPS
- steventhedev 12y ago
  Hmmmm.... Anyone want to build an LLVM backend + FFI module? Probably worth a small fortune to shops that want to migrate out of MUMPS
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Good luck with that. MUMPS is an interesting beast. Before you embark on that I suggest you look into some medium sized MUMPS based project to get an idea of the kind of flavor of madness you'll be engaging. But I agree with you that if you can pull this off you'll be doing well financially. Even better: a MUMPS -> Java automatic translator (or maybe Python or Ruby, but I think the Java would be an easier sell in that market).
- cafard 12y ago
  A co-worker's son had the offer of a summer 2015 internship with a big US insurer. The system he would have worked on had a VB (maybe VB.NET) front end to a MUMPS system. He did not take the job, for something that seemed more useful came up. [edit: specified which summer]

The upcoming Finnish patient information system will apparently be written in mumps. The total estimated cost of the system is 1.8 billion euros.

by nawitus 12y ago

The upcoming Finnish patient information system will apparently be written in mumps. The total estimated cost of the system is 1.8 billion euros.

jacquesm 12y ago

That, for want of a better word is absolutely incredible. I keep using that word and I think I know what it means but really, what were they smoking? MUMPS (har har) has it's origins in the medical world so there are a lot more people versed in mumps in that world that have domain expertise regarding hospitals but you'd hope that that chapter of the Cambrian explosion in programming was closed by now and that someone would come to their senses and would say: absolutely no more new development in MUMPS. (And 'Mapper' for that matter.) They were dead-ends 30 years ago, they're not magically going to be better in 2015. Of course it would be hard to get rid of 1.8B euros using any other available technology so maybe that's were we can find part of the answer of why this happened. Maintaining MUMPS code is an interesting exercise in pasta consumption, the language more or less dictates it. See also: http://thedailywtf.com/articles/A_Case_of_the_MUMPS http://thedailywtf.com/articles/A_Case_of_the_MUMPS

steventhedev 12y ago
Hmmmm.... Anyone want to build an LLVM backend + FFI module? Probably worth a small fortune to shops that want to migrate out of MUMPS
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Good luck with that. MUMPS is an interesting beast. Before you embark on that I suggest you look into some medium sized MUMPS based project to get an idea of the kind of flavor of madness you'll be engaging. But I agree with you that if you can pull this off you'll be doing well financially. Even better: a MUMPS -> Java automatic translator (or maybe Python or Ruby, but I think the Java would be an easier sell in that market).
cafard 12y ago
A co-worker's son had the offer of a summer 2015 internship with a big US insurer. The system he would have worked on had a VB (maybe VB.NET) front end to a MUMPS system. He did not take the job, for something that seemed more useful came up. [edit: specified which summer]