Who's On: Arthur B. Smith

Draw up a chair; get yourself a refreshing drink and read our interview with Arthur B. Smith. Unless you haven’t already heard, Art is now at the helm of the MDC (M Development Committee). We wanted to learn a little bit more about who this person is and we feel we merit full marks for the interview.

Who is Arthur B. Smith?

I'll try to resist the temptation to wax metaphysical here.... Art is a guy who likes to stay busy. I'm 37 years old, a graduate of the University of Delaware (BS in Chemistry, MS in Chemistry, MS in Computer and Information Sciences), and employed at the University of Missouri-Columbia. I am an amateur musician (tuba is my principal instrument), a husband and father (one son, age 7 1/2), a volunteer fire fighter and Emergency Medical Technician, and a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). This last one has taught me a lot about long processes of consensus building!

I live in a small rural community (Millersburg, Missouri) where I also write and publish the Millersburg Mirror, our local paper (3 pages of "news" and 1 page of ads, monthly). "News" is such important topics as the birthdays and anniversaries for the month, community events at the local churches and Lions Club, and awards that have been won by local residents and their children.

In my job with the University, I am the lead programmer with the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, and am responsible for all the computing done in the hospital, including the Hospital Information System, which is a twelve-year old home-built system written in MUMPS. I've been in this position for five and a half years now. I also do some consulting and training on the side as Emergent Technologies. Prior to taking the job at the University, I worked in industry for six years as a C programmer/analyst in a mix of PC and Unix platforms.

I also have the honor of being the chairman of the MUMPS Development Committee -- the US National Standards body for M Technology. I have been active with the MDC for five years (I dived into MUMPS with both feet!) and, prior to becoming MDC chair, was the chairman of Subcommittee 15 (Programming Structures) in the MDC for two years.

What made you go for the helm of the MDC?

Well, as I said, I like to stay busy! I have to be honest here -- I didn't really "go for the helm of the MDC" in the sense of throwing my hat into the ring with a bunch of other contenders. It was more like when they asked for volunteers to step forward, I was the last one to step back! Seriously, though, it is quite an honor, and I hope I am able to live up to the standards set by my predecessors. This will be made much easier by the great people in the MDC and the wonderful staff of the MTA, which supports the MDC in its activities.

I also have to say that I really enjoy the process of developing a consensus standard. Prior to joining the MDC I watched (but did not participate in) the standards development process for the C and POSIX standards. The whole mechanism is fun for me, and it is really rewarding to watch a proposal evolve from a rough idea to a well-formed and worthwhile addition to the language. The final form may take many years to develop, and I'm sure to some people it's about as thrilling as watching corn grow, but it is something I find very attractive.

What short / long term plans do you have. What do you wish to see bettered / improved?

In the short term, I'm looking to start the process of closing the current set of MDC-approved proposals into a new set of standards. We hope to have a "X11.1-2001" standard (the "Millennium Standard"), which means that we need to start the closure very soon. I'm also hoping to make some inroads into the perennial problems of bringing both people and funds into the MDC. My Vice Chair, Rick Marshall of the VA, has a number of good ideas on these issues that I'm hoping we can bring to bear soon.

In the "medium term", I'm VERY excited about the effort currently under way to develop an object oriented language which is an extension of (and fully interoperable with) MUMPS. There is a lot of good work going on in this group, and it has the potential of creating a language which is uniquely powerful and versatile, and which can be attractive to both academic and production environments. Keep your eyes open for Omega. I am hopeful that it may make it into the "Millennium Standard" suite, with multiple implementations available by that time.

In the long term, I hope that we can address the "marketing" of M Technology. In far too many circles, MUMPS is a dirty word, only because people still think of it as the language from the 70's. MUMPS has been solving problems for twenty years that the industry is just beginning to recognize (persistent variables, late binding, and multi-hierarchical structures, for example). I hope that projects such as Omega and the recent set of World-Wide-Web interfaces will help get the larger industry community to re-examine MUMPS.

As for what I would like to see improved, I would have to say the relationships between and among the M-implementers and the users within the MDC. Recently it seems that some of the spirit of frank and open cooperation within the MDC has flagged. I hope that all the parties can be brought back to the realization that sharing their ideas, strengths and weaknesses benefits everyone. Development needn't be competitive -- it's not a "zero-sum game."

A short address to the M community.

I think the future of MUMPS is dependent on pulling ourselves out of the niche mentality. I would strongly encourage the MUMPS community to branch out. We all need to keep ourselves educated about what is going on in the larger industry community. If we learn about the problems that others are facing, we can discover that we have many unique solutions to these problems.

How many MUMPS users know that implementing persistent variables in a distributed multi-user system has been plaguing developers in other languages? Or that the need to intuitively model hierarchical and multi-hierarchical data is being discussed in the relational database world? Probably about as many the non-MUMPS users who know that MUMPS has addressed these problems successfully for years.

Take the time and make the effort to become informed about the real issues in our industry, and then let others know about how MUMPS provides these solutions today. Or, better yet, just beat them to the punch by developing your "killer app" using this "secret weapon" technology. There's a lot about M to love, and the deeper you study it, the more you can find about it.

We wish Art the best of luck in his new role and would like to add that we are here to offer a helping hand to the MDC in achieving its goals.

E&OE