Original link: The Database Powering America’s Hospitals May Not Be What You Expect / Hackaday.
MUMPS or M is a funny language.
Very simple code snippet:
test()
for i=1:1:3 do
. write "Hi from Mumps!",!
quit
This is actually sort of readable. But commands can be abbreviated, so that code can also be written as:
test2()
f i=1:1:3 d
. w "Hi from Mumps!",!
q
And now it is not so readable.
This big advantage is the database (hierachical database not relational database!) integration.
Variables that are prefixed with ^ get automatically loaded from and saved to a database. Todays ORM's are quite clumsy compared to it.
Example:
globinit()
set ^v=0
set ^m("xyz")="ABC"
quit
glob()
set ^v=^v+1
write ^v,!
set ^m("xyz")=^m("xyz")_"."
write ^m("xyz"),!
quit