Interesting. There is a Free version of MUMPS in the works-- FreeM. This presents interesting possibilities. I figure I will install it and see how well it works with VA Fileman. If it doesn't work, maybe I can contribute a little bit.
The ultimate goal would be to get RPMS running on it.
M is the most obtuse language in the universe (save for COBOL, perhaps). It shares one annoying "feature" with Python-- blocking is done with line prefixes. In Python, blocking is managed through whitespace; in M, it's periods (.). So you end up with code that looks like this:
D I $G(DIERR) K ^TMP("DDBLST",$J) D CLEAN Q
.N DOC,DOCSA
.S DOC=""
.K ^TMP("DDBLST",$J)
.F S DOC=$O(@DDBDSA@(DOC)) Q:DOC="" D
..S DOCSA=@DDBDSA@(DOC)
..D LOADCL^DDBR4(DOCSA,"",DOC)
..Q
.Q
In spite of this, I'm beginning to like it.