C++ to Ada?

[ted@grebyn.com (Ted Holden)]

 
 
From:  Dick Dunn
 
>So...we know that we can preprocess C++ -> C.  I suspect one can preprocess
>to get C -> Ada.  Combine the two and you've got a tool analogous to
>"Classic Ada" except that its input looks like C++. [...]
 
[Various replies....]
 
You people seem to have your fairy-tale backwards.  It was the guy who
transmuted base metal into gold who the emperor rewarded;  the guy who
transmuted the gold into donkey dukey got hung.
 
From: Bill Wolf, Clemson
 
>   I personally would consider the use of a C++-to-Ada preprocessor for
>   the development of new code to be entirely out of the spirit of Ada.
 
Why are you and your friends even considering such a thing, Bill?
Having problems with Ada again?  I mean, I'm not sitting here
considering translating Smalltalk or Eiffel into C++ or any of MY
languages...
 
 
>   In my view, the dividing line is as follows:
 
>   [long theological discussion on when translating into Ada is
     permissible...]
 
>         1) The use of preprocessing techniques is limited to those
>            situations in which specific, indispensable requirements
>            cannot be satisfied using Ada alone, without incurring
>            extraordinary and disastrous expenses.
 
 
Such as when a project actually needs to get done?  Problem is, you've
still got the whole thing backwards.  What you need is a good Ada --> C
or Ada --> C++ translater.
 
Funny that somebody so heavily into Ada seems to think in terms of
"extraordinary and disasterous expenses" as if such terminology were
descriptive of everyday facts of life.  I mean, your language kinds
of gives away the nature of your game, if you know what I mean.
 
In fact, it almost sounds poetic, as if...
 
"...caught from some unhappy master             Poe
whom unmerciful disaster
followed fast, and followed faster..."
 
"...till this sorry, wretched bastard           Holden
turned to grace, to C once more;
flung the Ada monster back
into the night's plutonian shore,
crying 'Never... nevermore'"
 
or something like that.
 
I mean, if I were programming in Ada, I'd keep a copy of Poe's works right
next to the terminal.  Seems fitting.
 
>   Similarly, the undisciplined practices which
>   are common among the users of C and C++ would not simply vanish during the
>   translation process.....
 
Undisciplined practices?
 
Such as bringing projects in on time and under budget??   Can't have
that, now, can we?
 
From:  Horst Kern, Muenchen; West-Germany
 
>Okay, I can see the  problem:  Even  though  everyone  was  called  to
>participate  in  the  Ada effort, some people - like Edsgar Dijkstra -
>have given their reasons for repelling all  three  language  proposals
>and  are  now hoping that the Russians will use Ada too. (He made this
>statement 6 years ago so it is perhaps not up to date any more.)
 
Turns out, the Russians aren't that stupid.  I asked a couple of them
about it recently;  their reply was something like "Kommunizm nam
obespechivaet s gorami i neshchactiem dostatochno..."  (communism
provides us with all the grief and heartache we require).  They appear
to be programming mostly in C these days.
 
>The current discussion makes it evident that the laws (again this word
>which  is  so much disliked) of nature have not yet been discovered in
>computer science. So I think it is a good discussion and nobody should
>tell Ted Holdon to shut up.
 
They were telling me to shut up because their side of the net looks like
a steady stream of articles (they have no "N" button to hit to reject an
article).  I can't really sympathize with them;  sounds like their network
software was written in Ada or something.  By the way, that's "Holden", with
an "e".
 
From: Kent of Zanth,
 
>Granted that Ada is a marvelous language in its narrowly defined area
>of competence, I think any defense lawyer would have a field day
>poking holes in a language that has been frozen by a military
>bureaucracy; that ignores best current practice (full fledged OOP);
>whose semantics is so ill defined that most programmer users avoid
>most of the language most of the time, and most employers put lots of
>language features off limits; the implementation of one of whose main
>goals (concurrent programming support for embedded multiprocessor
>systems) is held up as a horrid example in language theory classes;
>whose syntax ignored established usage in favor of cuteness or
>uniqueness (read opaqueness); whose behavior is completely
>counter-intuitive, and on and on and on.
 
>Ada just has no business being pointed to as a standard
>of language excellence.  It is too big, too awkward, shows its seams
>too prominently, and is _much_ too hard to teach, to learn, and to
>use.  The "Dear Ada" column in Ada Letters is always an occassion for
>laughter and tears, but never for that warm feeling of satisfaction at
>seeing a job well done.
 
Amen.
 
There has been some dispute here recently concerning the term "high level"
(i.e. that Ada is a "high level" language as opposed to C, which isn't).
 
The truth is that the dichotomy is roughly as follows:  of major languages
at present, C++ is a high level language (OOP).  C is a high-structured,
low-level language, a kind of a thinking-man's assembler, if you will.  Ada
is a high-overhead, low-performance language, a non-thinking-man's dis-
assembler, intended for disassembling projects, careers, reputations,
psychological profiles, aeroplanes (such as the French Airbus) etc. etc.
 
Ted Holden
HTE