[Info-vax] Meditech in the news

[plugh]

On Sunday, January 9, 2022 at 11:14:32 AM UTC-7, Craig A. Berry wrote:
> On 1/8/22 2:18 PM, plugh wrote: 
> > On Saturday, January 8, 2022 at 12:59:12 PM UTC-7, Arne Vajhøj wrote: 
> >> On 1/8/2022 1:40 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote: 
> >>> plugh <jchi... at gmail.com> wrote: 
> >>>> I think one of the aspects of MUmPhs that buggers newbs is that it's one of= 
> >>>> the few languages implementing content addressable memory, even to seconda= 
> >>>> ry storage. I've professionally written REXX, which is the only other such = 
> >>>> language. I'm sure there are others. 
> >>> 
> >>> It's actually become a popular thing recently, with hashes being implemented 
> >>> in perl and python as standard data structures. Not as extensive or 
> >>> transparent as in Mumps, mind you. 
> >> In memory hashtables/hashmaps/dictionaries/associative arrays are a 
> >> standard feature in most newer languages. 
> >> 
> >> Index-sequential files/NoSQL Key Value Stores are also common across 
> >> technologies. 
> >> 
> >> The combination is not common. Even though I guess that languages 
> >> that allow overloading of indexing operator could do something 
> >> similar under the hood. 
> >> 
> >> Arne 
> > 
> > Very true. I should've been clearer when referencing CAM. I'd like to 
> > call out stem-and-list CAM as opposed to hashing &c. The difference 
> > is storage organization around paths, not nodes. That's why I 
> > namechecked REXX. I'm quite sure perl could do that as well.
> I have no idea what "stem-and-list CAM" is, 

Neither do I, probably because it doesn't exist. I should've written
"stem and leaf"

Anyway.

> but Perl provides the 
> ability to tie hashes to a file so that accessing hash elements accesses 
> file contents. With the VMS::IndexedFile extension you can also get one 
> hash per index and just access the records by accessing the hash.

It's not quite the same thing, maybe it is in some senses.

We used (still do?) this in DCL via concatenating symbols with periods during lexical parsing, so that the subsequent evaluation step yielded a value. I think some people implemented arrays using this trick.

Perl sort of does this with hashes, and I'm pretty sure you can get something workable with arrays. It's foolish to disagree, of course, since TMTOWTDI
I have to admit I've never tried stem-and-leaf storage in Perl.