[cumbria_lug] Bespoke software job

[Roger Cope]

Programmers will always have 'language wars' amongst themselves but if
you're making a living from programming then I'm a great believer in giving
yourself a choice - better to have the ability to use the right language for
the job then try to bend the job to an unsuitable language.

Longtime LUGers will know I'm a specialist in a language called MUMPS, which
is sidesplittingly old and clunky to non-believers but achieving 1000%
growth per annum in the telecomms industry because it's the only commercial
platform capable of storing all mobile phone communications and still
remaining performant.

MUMPS professionals who kept current and retrained to InterSystems' Cache
have never had it so good - but they still represent a microscopic
proportion of programming talent world wide. From the outside, MUMPS/Cache
maybe a laughable anachronism but from the inside there's only one set of
people laughing on the way to the bank!

Roger

-----Original Message-----
From: angie ahl [mailto:angie at vertebrate.co.uk] 
Sent: 27 August 2005 13:21
To: Cumbria LUG
Subject: Re: [cumbria_lug] Bespoke software job

Hold up guys. You're both right.

I had the painful decision to make 3 years ago when I was working with a
little known language called Lasso.
I didn't really know much about it when I started out and took
recommendations which led me to Lasso. It's not a bad language but it's
community is less than 2000 and it was starting to fall apart 4 years ago.