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Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!COMMUNITY-CHEST.MITRE.ORG!munck
From: munck@COMMUNITY-CHEST.MITRE.ORG (Bob Munck)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Use of "C/Ada" -- the C dialect of Ada
Message-ID: <18340.635014153@chance>
Date: 14 Feb 90 16:49:13 GMT
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Reply-To: munck@mwunix.mitre.org
Organization: The Internet
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


We've all run into "FORTRAN/Ada" or "JOVIAL/Ada" in which FORTRAN or
JOVIAL programmers forced to use Ada continue to write their "native
language" but using the Ada equivalent and syntax.  It's usually
worth the derision we give it.

HOWEVER, I've run into a project of significant importance and cost in
which the grunt programmers simply cannot, for reasons of contracting,
schedule, and cost, be taught Ada the way we like to do it: teaching
software engineering principles and incidentally using Ada.  We're stuck
with C programmers and no option if the development schedule is to be
met.  The system is one that will undergo significant updating during
its entire lifetime, maybe changing 25% of the code every year for
several decades AFTER INITIAL DELIVERY.

It occurred to me that there might be possible to get Ada from the
initial development by having them use a C/Ada dialect.  Perhaps we
could give them a handbook or pop-up HELP system in their editor that
gives the Ada equivalent for the various C constructs that they might
use.  Also, there could be Ada code skeletons, packages and generics,
and coding guidelines.  I know, some things that are done in C can't be
done easily or at all in Ada; I hypothesize that most of those are
things that we don't want them to do anyway.

The situation is such that it would probably be possible to hire one or
two Real Ada Gurus to set things up, write the pre-packaged stuff, and
help the C programmers express themselves in simple Ada throughout the
project.

Does this ring a bell with anyone out there?  Are there any C to Ada
comparisons, Ada Introductions for C Programmers, or similar material? 
I've never programmed in C; any opinions on my idea from those of you
who have done both C and Ada?

I'll let you know how it works out sometime in 2013.

                                   -- Bob Munck, MITRE McLean