Re: Ada to C Translator

[Lao Xiao Hai <laoxhai@ix.netcom.com>]

Good reply Robert.   I have a few notes to augment your comments.

Robert Dewar wrote:

> A staggeringly ignorant question :-) Yes, of COURSE you can,
> and the amount of legacy COBOL out there is huge. Furthermore,
> new applications are being generated in COBOL all the time
> (that should not be surprising, COBOL is still the most
> suitable language for fiscal applications ...

I have a friend whose company generates a very considerable revenue
stream each year with products, training, and consulting support to
users
of COBOL, especially ANSI-85 COBOL and the new Object COBOL.
His income from COBOL is far greater than my company's income from Ada.

As noted by Robert, certain constructs in COBOL are more expressive for
financial applications than other languages.   In addition, contemporary

COBOL has rectified many of the problems associated with earlier
versions of the language.   Of course, who bothers to keep up with the
changes once they have made their choice for some other language --
often a of language inferior quality when targeted to some particular
application domain.  For example, C++ is a horrid language for
administrative
and financial software but its popularity makes it the choice of
otherwise
intelligent people.

> > What about Forth?
>
> Of *course* Forth is alive and well, and is
> used in many applications areas. There is by the way a VERY
> nice Forth interpretor for the Palm Pilot, which has been used
> to generate a number of Palm applications.

The largest Forth Interest Group (not called Forth User Group for
obvious reasons) is in St. Petersburg, Russia.  The language is still
excellent for eight-bit microprocessors such as the I-8051 and used
widely in that domain.   Moreover, one might consider Forth's
relationship to another language we rarely encounter which affects
our daily lives: Postscript.

> > The only laguage I can think of other than Ada and C which
> > has a active compiler support is Fortran - even Pascal is
> > struggeling.
>
> Again, the lack of awareness in this statement is remarkably
> parochial -- even peculiar, given its inclusion of Ada as one
> of three languages still in use -- that would surprise a LOT of
> people:-)

Until recently, I attended a lot of conferences each year.   My name
badge would identify my company as AdaWorks.    "Ada?!!!  I thought
that language was dead a long time ago."    The majority of people I
meet in the computing industry are under the impression that no one
uses Ada anymore, not even the military.    I also get to meet a lot
of military people.   A huge percentage of them believe Ada is no
longer relevant.    This is the perception many of us have been trying
to change for the last ten years.   I am sad that we have not made more
progress.

Advocates of other minor players in the languages and tools game are
under the same cloud.   It is the old argument that the best product
does
not necessarily gain the greatest market share.

> By far the most widely used language for PC development is
> Visual Basic (although almost never taught in universities,
> contrary to other claims you made).

It is, however, widely taught in various vocational schools and
community
colleges.   Places such as DeVry, Heald, and others like it certainly
include
Visual BASIC.   Vocational schools keep a sharp eye on the marketplace
and
develop their curriculum to meet the demand.    Some of you would be
quite
surprised to discover how many students with a BA or MA in English,
Psychology,
Biology, or Music are studying Visual Basic and HTML at some nearby
vocational school.   Oh, and they are getting jobs when they graduate
too.

> > My point is that with Ada, you will most likely get a
> > maintained compiler for a current platform in 15 years. Will
> > this be true for C++?
>
> Yes, of course it will. Ada advocacy is not helped by FUD like
> this which is clearly unfounded.

In a recent conversation with someone from IBM Santa Theresa labs
I learned that even PL/I is undergoing a rework to object technology.
He did not know the status of this effort, but it will be fascinating to

see if it becomes a reality in the marketplace.    Also, IBM continues
to sell and support APL.   There is apparently a user base for APL
in the financial analysis industry.

As Robert Dewar noted, these languages do not necessarily go away.
Thankfully, some do.   In the late 1970's I was working for consulting
firm when a request came from a U.S. Army client to teach a class to
one of their remote sites in IBM 1401/1460 Autocoder.   To the best
of my knowledge, that is one language no longer in use, but I could be
wrong.   We did sell a lot of our old DoD computing equipment to former
Eastern Block nations.   I recall Herb Grosch saying we should ensure
that they never be able to actually use any of it by also supplying the
manufacturer's documentation.  Some poor soul in Azerbaijian is,
at this moment, trying to discover how to interpret the virgule
character
in a core memory dump.

Richard Riehle