HOW TO MAKE ADA MORE

[csus.edu!netcom.com!netcomsv!nitelog!michael.hagerty@decwrl.dec.com (Mic hael Hagerty)]

On 4 Jun 93, Chris Barber posted, in response to Timothy Shimeall:

TS. , and, in fact, there are large portability problems for non-trivial 
  . non-Ada-based applications across even rather similar environments.  
  . (Right now, I'm trying to port the Aegis project-control system from 
  . Sun to Iris, and the bug-chasing is annoyingly complex...)

CB. Is this the fault of the languages used or of differences between 
  . operating systems?

The fact that each vendor of computer systems adds features to the common
languages which bring out certain performance features of their machines
at the cost of portability.  Programmers, seeking to squeeze performance
out of their programs, use these features and thereby limit the code to
that particular brand of hardware.  This is marketing and it is reasonable
to expect vendors to do it.

However, it is totally coneheaded for programmers to buy into this set of
limitations under the expectation that this particular vendor will be in
business and/or will always have the best/fastest hardware.

Numerous times I have been called in to assist in the porting of software
which has been written to take advantage of the last cycle of the machine.
In each and every instance, the cost (and time) of moving this software to
the new system has outstripped any inefficiency which may have remained in
the software if it were written in a portable manner conformant to a well
published standard.  In several cases, the cost of the port was orders of
magnitude greater than the efficiency gained through machine and/or vendor
specific code...

Just to go back...  I recall working on a payroll system (the one which 
paid my check) which was written in a time-sharing vendor's own version of
BASIC.  The vendor was bought out and the service was to be discontinued
in 30 days.  I was called in to help and succeeded in converting the system
to FORTRAN-66.  It was the only other language we had available on the two
systems, but it was standard...  It worked and I did get paid on time...

Regards, Mikey <michael.hagerty@nitelog.com>
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