Re: Modernization

[billwolf%hazel.cs.clemson.edu@hubcap.clemson.edu (William Thomas Wolfe, 2847 )]

From ok@cs.mu.oz.au (Richard O'Keefe):
> Wolfe's original claim was
> 	COBOL has stood absolutely still

    I didn't say "absolutely"; as you noted in your original
    article, several relatively trivial changes have been made. 

> 	therefore DoD has abandoned it.
> Nothing could be further from my mind than to suggest that COBOL is an
> advanced language or that it has generics or multitasking (although the
> COBOL I used back in the 70's did have multitasking).  My points are:
> 	COBOL has not stood absolutely still;
> 	It has in fact changed fast enough to hurt COBOL users.
> [...] Converting from one COBOL standard to the next is seldom just a 
> matter of recompiling.  I repeat, there are companies that make 
> large sums of money converting other people's programs from (old) 
> COBOL to (new) COBOL.

    Perhaps this has something to do with COBOL not having the
    equivalent of Ada's pragma Interface, which itself is another
    example of a needed reform.

> Do we really want that to happen to Ada?  If there turn out to be
> compelling reasons for the Ada 8X -> Ada 9Y transition to require
> more than recompilation, would it be possible to require an Ada 9Y
> compiler vendor to provide a validated conversion tool for 8X?

    As mentioned earlier, I think there have been at least rumblings
    to the effect that the US Government would order a translator built,
    and then make it freely available via the Ada Software Repository.

    I would think it safe to assume that AJPO will do an outstanding
    job of making the transition run smoothly; undoubtedly there will
    be considerable opportunities for the discussion of issues and
    the development of transition strategies, tools, and techniques,
    probably advancing software engineering technology considerably
    in the process.

 
    Bill Wolfe, wtwolfe@hubcap.clemson.edu