[Suitability of the MUMPS Language for Government Agencies]

B-203143: Published: Jul 8, 1983. Publicly Released: Jul 8, 1983.

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In response to a congressional request, comments were made on the suitability of the Massachusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System (MUMPS) language for Government agencies. MUMPS is not used at GAO and GAO does not consider it suitable for generalized use in the Government. The system was developed as a means for building databases and querying hospital records and is one of 10 American National Standard languages. However, it was not chosen as Federal information processing standard language because of the changing nature of database systems, and recognizing MUMPS as a separate entity would do a disservice to users of other similar products. GAO does not consider MUMPS suitable as a Government standard because of the wide diversity of applications used in Federal agencies whose needs could not be met by one database language. Because MUMPS has not been adapted to a majority of the large computer brands, some vendors would be precluded from bidding on Government contracts if MUMPS were specified. In addition, several newer languages can perform the same functions as MUMPS and are easier to use.

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