Re: Ada to C/C++ translator needed

["Tim Behrendsen" <tim@a-sis.com>]

Richard A. O'Keefe <ok@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au> wrote in article
<52o2eg$hfl@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>...
> "Tim Behrendsen" <tim@airshields.com> writes:
> 
> >However, to generalize on that basis that Ada is *always* as
> >efficient as C is dangerous thinking, particularly for the original
> >poster's "real" application software that he wants to convert to C.
> 
> No such generalisation has been made by anyone, except by you as
> a straw man.  All that has been offered is a disproof of the
> *opposite* generalisation (that C is always more efficient than Ada).

From your other post:

  "If an expensive optimising C compiler (developed for a specific machine,
  with *intimate* knowledge of that machine) can't beat a free Ada compiler
  which runs on a wide range of machines, when given idiomatic code for a
  fairly straightfoward program, what would _you_ conclude?"

Sounds like a generalisation to me.

Considering that your performance comparisons in your original post
was based on a "numerical program", this tells you *nothing* about
other classes of problems.  To quote you, "Have you no logic, man?"  

> >In fact, I can show you APL lines of code that could potentially
> >beat an equivalent C program (because there are so many fundamental
> >primitives are are natively implemented), but that doesn't mean
> >I want to write MS/Word using APL.
> 
> I didn't talk about something _potentially_ more efficient,
> I talked about something that is *actually* more efficient.

You talked about one type of problem on one machine.  You obviously
have never tried to create benchmark program.  Performance can vary
*dramatically* between different compilers with the *same* language,
much less different languages!

> Why doesn't Behrendsen understand the *really* important point
> about my posting?  Surely it was obvious that
>  - obtaining, installing, and using a FREE Ada compiler that can
>    generate very good code on a wide range of platforms, and
>    NOT converting the code, but continuing to maintain it in Ada
> stands an excellent chance of being *CHEAPER* than
>  - converting Ada to C, partly by tool, partly by hand, and
>    then trying to maintain the result in C.

Why doesn't O'Keefe understand that that the latter point would
be a good point had he made it, and not posted statistically
insignificant garbage to try and justify some dubious conclusion?

I agree that conversion of the fellow's Ada program is probably
a bad idea, but that wasn't the point.  The point is that the
justification you gave was worthless, and I hope any students
out there don't learn that you can make any general conclusion
from little trivial programs run on one particular environment.

> >And BTW, it may well be *true* that Ada can be as efficient
> >as C.  You simply can't prove it in this manner.
> 
> I am *sick* of Behrenden's debating tricks.
> NOONE WAS *TRYING* to prove that Ada is always as efficient as C.\
> All I trying to do, and what I *succeeded* in doing, was
> *DIS*proving the popular contrary belief.

And I'm sick of your ranting when you're caught posting something
that makes no sense.  You have disproved *nothing*!  All you have
disproven is, for the set of all programs, there exists no program
on any platform using any compiler that is faster in Ada than C.
And no one that I know of has ever made that assertion.  Talk about
knocking down straw men!

> >Show me a CAD
> >system, RDBMS, heck, id Software's Quake! written in both C and
> >Ada (or Scheme) using the same algorithms, and *then* tell me the
> >results.
> 
> Pay for my time, and I'll do it.  My time costs A$140/hour.
> Put up or shut up.

It's not my assertion to prove.  If you want to show that Ada
can be just as efficient as C, then prove it in a non-trivial
program using a mix of algorithm theory.

-- Tim Behrendsen (tim@a-sis.com)