ills
illsM Computing, Volume 6, number 5, December 1998, pages 23-24
Things happen, and when they do, certain questions are asked over and over. There are some that I have heard quite a lot of times over the past few months. What will happen to M[UMPS]? What will happen to the MTA? What will happen to the MDC? What will happen to Civilization As We Know It?
The answer, of course, is that the future will tell, but some details are already becoming apparent.
Let's start with the question about the MUMPS Development Committee. That is one for which the answer seems to be rather evident. The MDC started its work in 1972 when there were over a dozen competing dialects of a language that was later standardized, and further developed. Currently, there are still a number of language processors left: DSM, MSM and Caché obviously lead the market, and there are also DTM, Plus5, GTM, CCSM, M-Global, UC-Davis MUMPS, Gerum Standard MUMPS, and the Russian , the Brazilian Extensao MUMPS and a couple of Japanese implementations . I haven't actively worked with the latter ones recently, so I don't know how close to the current standard these are, but these products still seem to satisfy a part of the market. Talking to people at the various gatherings that I attend, it continues to surprise me how many people still use these products, and how well these implementations still fulfill the needs of their end-users.
So, if any estimates are to be made about the division of the market, and how the market demands might influence activities of the MDC, I would say that the main reason for existence of the MDC is no longer present: there are no longer competing dialects of the language and there are no longer competing plans for extensions to the language. Also, I see that some customers would rather stick with the implementation of the language with which they are currently working, and are not moving to other implementations that are closer to a more recent version of the ANSI and ISO standards. And so, it has become obvious to me that these extras are not the prime interests of those customers.
In short, I think that I don't need to read any obscure entrails to predict the future of the MDC: after a long and fruitful life, the committee has reached the point where the burning need for its work is no longer present. I foresee the completion of the "millennium version" of the standard for the programming language (X11.1), I foresee ratification of the current working documents of OMI and MWAPI (X11.2 and X11.6). I foresee that there will not be renewed versions of the bindings to GKS and X-WindowTM (X11.3 and X11.4).
I foresee that the millennium versions of X11.1, X11.2 and X11.6 will probably be the final incarnations of these standards, and that the committee will discontinue work on the issues related to these standards.
So what is left? The only other work before the MDC is the work on X11.7, currently probably better known as "Omega". As yet, there is no implementation of the concepts that are intended to be included in this standard, and I have seen no announcements from any implementor that they are working on an implementation. I would be surprised if the enthusiasm for "Omega" as an intellectual excercise could keep the committee alive.
For the second question, "What will happen to M[UMPS]?" I foresee a much brighter future. Time and again, it is shown that the technology that once was known by this name offers a price/performance ratio that other technologies simply cannot rival. I was still living in Europe when we were stunned by the fact that a major player in the MUMPS market there (and chairman of the Swiss national MUG) "dropped out", because his management forced him to switch from MUMPS to "a relational database". I am extremely happy to see that his department now has reverted back to "the fold" because the performance that they needed (and were used to) could simply not be achieved otherwise.
So, activities to teach the language, activities to support tools that enhance the capabilities of the language, activities that support the maintenance of products created in the language, for all of those, I foresee that there will be an increasing need, especially while the market continues to expand.
I am writing this column on my way back from the annual meeting of MTA-Europe. By the time that this column appears in print, it will probably no longer be any news that MTA-Europe decided to dissolve itself at this meeting. Does the demise of the European organization spell a similar future for the other MTAs? I don't think so. After all, there are quite a number of organizations that have the terms MTA and MUG in their names, and issues that spell trouble for one organization may benefit the other.
MTA-Europe felt that the strength of the various national organizations was sufficient that there was little or no interest left to support an European parent organization. The national organizations, however, are still there, and will continue to meet. Even while the MTA-Europe was discussing the procedural activities that would be required to dissolve the "umbrella" organization, the same people were planning future meetings of their national organizations.
The largest organization is MTA-NA. For this organization, I am afraid that I do need to resort to ESP, or other occult techniques, to predict a future. The increasing market for products that are based on M[UMPS] should increase the viability of the MTA, and yet, the membership of the MTA, just like any other user group, is decreasing and will probably continue on this path.
Being a member of the MTA Board, I am, of course, one of the people looking at what we might do to increase, or at least stabilize the membership.
The MTA currently produces this journal, sells other M[UMPS] related literature, maintains a database with information about M[UMPS] related employment openings, maintains a web-site, and organizes the annual meeting.
It used to be that the annual meeting was a major source of income for the organization, but the current trend is that people obtain more information from "the web", and have much less need to travel to meetings where implementors display their products. In the past, such exhibitions were the only chance to obtain product information, but this function of annual meetings is no longer there. By providing "links" from the MTA web-site to the web-sites of the various implementors, consultants, employers and tools vendors, the MTA provides an important part of the benefits that the membership expects, but has also lost a significant part of the need for annual meetings.
The reduced interest in annual meetings does mean that the MTA will have to expand its services, or else be prepared for the situation where all income comes from membership fees and advertising in M-Computing. I have already heard the comment that members feel that the only tangible return they see for their membership fee is the journal, and that they don't find that enough to justify the expense. So there is a strong indication that, if nothing changes, membership could even decrease more rapidly than just because of the reduced interest in annual meetings.
Elsewhere in this issue, I expect to see an article by the MTA-Board as a whole, where future plans for the organization are discussed in more detail.
For the local user groups, the future is probably a whole lot sunnier. After all, membership in these organizations typically involves a fairly low annual membership fee (to cover postage and pizza), and the travel for their get-togethers is by definition local.
For myself, there have been some changes since last June. After leaving Micronetics, I was pleased to see how many jobs there were to choose from (hence some of my sunny predictions). I was even more pleased to find a job that I really enjoy without having to relocate. I am currently employed by Jacquard Systems Research, and I am on contract with the Veteran's Administration in Silver Spring, where I have joined Ruth Dayhoff and Peter Kuzmak on their Imaging Project.
For the other collegues who used to work for Micronetics, I have heard are that they all "landed" pretty comfortably, and most did not have to leave the M[UMPS] world.
So, in short, the Titanic IS still afloat and I expect that it will continue to float for quite a while. I know it's not unsinkable, but if there is an iceberg up ahead that will cause the demise of M[UMPS] related technology, that would come as a complete surprise to me.
Ed de Moel is past chairman of the MDC
and works with Jacquard Systems Research.
His experience includes developing software for research in medicine
and physics.
Over the past ten years, Ed's has mostly focused on the production
of tools for data management and analysis, and tools for the support
of day-to-day operation of medical systems.
Ed can be
reached by e-mail.