G L O B A L A C C E S S Volume 1, No. 1 July, 1987 MUMPS means your never have to say you're sorting. $VIEW(Editor) Welcome to GLOBAL ACCESS, the latest go-round of the MUMPS SIG newsletter (we're going to try it this way for a while, and see if it will stick this time...). My name is Mark J. Hyde, and it will be my duty to keep turning the crank (or pumping the bellows, or even--maybe--pounding the keyboard) until a newslet- ter comes out the other end. I am a long-time DECUS member, with roots in the 12-/18-/36-bit universe. However, my current major diversion is MUMPS systems: specifically, a VAX and a PDP-11 running InterSystems MUMPS, and numerous "industry standard" PCs running various implementations. I am thus ready and able to keep you up to date in the world of MUMPS. I would immediately like to abscond with this opportunity to mitigate a confusion factor which currently exists in the Big One: there is another Mark Hyde writing the Notes on Notes column for Office Automation. He is not me. His middle initial is "H," and I will be very careful to use mine ("J") in this newsletter and whenever my byline appears in other newsletters. Thusly can you, dear reader, tell us apart and appropriately direct your cheers or jeers. $DATA In a significant departure from the time-honored tradition of interpretive MUMPS, Greystone Technology Corporation has in- troduced a MUMPS compiler for the VAX. The company states that the compiler conforms to the 1984 standard, and is a true opti- mizing compiler which generates native VAX machine code. Other features include MUMPS extensions to allow access to VMS system services, a set of source language debugging tools, and a library of powerful utility routines. Greystone Technology is located at 8 Lakeside Office Park, Wakefield, MA 01880. $HOROLOG July 24 Submission deadline for Sept. newsletter Dec. 7-11 Fall '87 Symposium; Anaheim, CA Feb. 8-12, 1988 Canadian '88 Symposium; Toronto May 16-20, 1988 Spring '88 Symposium; Cincinnati, OH $ORDER("Symposium") This month's topic is usage of the word symposium. In an organization which is so dependent upon constant use of this word, it is shameful that so few people use it correctly. Sym- posium is the singular form; symposia is the plural. A simple trick for determining which to use in any given situation is to substitute the word congress (which follows more typical English rules). If congress fits, use symposium. If (and only if) con- gresses is required, use symposia. Some examples: I attended both U. S. Symposia [congresses] last year. We will have a regional symposium [congress] this year. I missed the Fall '85 Symposium [congress]. Please note that reference to a specific date (Fall '85, last spring's, ...) always requires the singular. This is the most common misuse, and is glaringly obvious if one tries congress (no one would say "the Fall '86 congresses"). The case of the Sym- posium Committee is less clear. It can be argued that the plural is correct because the committee deals with more than one sym- posium. However, it is apparent that this usage contributes to the confusion among the membership, and thus should be amended to "Symposium Committee" for their benefit. As an aside, it is also the case that English is generally moving away from "latinate" plurals. Antennas is gradually re- placing antennae, and condominiums never had anything to replace. Thus, it seems that we may be moving toward the era of (heaven forfend!) symposiums. [In the interest of greater clarity in writing, and preci- sion in communication, this column will address itself to examples of grammar or usage that I find to be egregiously poor, sloppy, trendy, or corpocratic.--Ed.] $NEXT At press time, preparations are in full swing for the 1987 MUMPS Users' Group Conference, to be held in Atlanta, June 8-12. Since most of the SIG steering committee (excepting, alas, your Editor) will be in attendance, the September newsletter should contain both a report on the conference, and a synopsis of news from the MUMPS Development Committee. Longer term plans for articles include MUMPS benchmarking, a comparison of the multiplicitous implementations in the MS-DOS world, and an evaluation of the Greystone compiler. $NEXT($ORDER)="Product" $RANDOM If recent economic news has you down, just remember that the downswing in the upturn only means that things are getting less worse more slowly.