[Discuss] MUMPS: was Stalwart E-mail; Was: Re: SSH options

[slitt at troubleshooters.com (Steve Litt)]

Rich Pieri said on Sat, 24 Jan 2026 09:20:57 -0500

>Try 60 years and MUMPS.
>
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUMPS

It looks very impressive. Especially the facilities for big data.

One thing though: It's based on a hierarchical database. My work with
PC Focus in the mid 1980's tells me that hierarchical databases are a
different breed: Efficient but difficult to do relations. And if you're
not handling huge data and will accept a hierarchical database, a
directory tree is perfect. A "leaf node" in a directory tree is a file
that can hold a heck of a lot of bytes, more than 3.5 million
characters. My UMENU2 program uses a directory hierarchy to store all
its data, but of course, it's tiny data.

However, as I said, for big data, I'm sure MUMPS would beat the
daylights out of conventional code operating on a directory tree.

SteveT

Steve Litt 

http://444domains.com