From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,9ab76c2183ecc054 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-01-01 13:10:34 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-02!supernews.com!router1.news.adelphia.net!cyclone.news.idirect.com.MISMATCH!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!cyclone-sjo1.usenetserver.com!news-out.usenetserver.com!cyclone-west.rr.com!news.rr.com!news-west.rr.com!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!news.mindspring.net!not-for-mail From: Lao Xiao Hai Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada to C Translator Date: Mon, 01 Jan 2001 13:01:49 -0800 Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Message-ID: <3A50F03D.3D56E9E2@ix.netcom.com> References: <92fk1v0cou@drn.newsguy.com> <92fqlt$h8d$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <3A4CF58B.A8FF223C@collins.rockwell.com> <92qfj7$7l9$1@nnrp1.deja.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 3f.35.b3.bb Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Server-Date: 1 Jan 2001 21:04:42 GMT X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:3524 Date: 2001-01-01T21:04:42+00:00 List-Id: 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