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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,b3d4bf1aa8fddd02 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Richard D Riehle Subject: Re: Ada2C++ Date: 2000/02/01 Message-ID: <8778ce$7k5$1@nntp8.atl.mindspring.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 580440297 References: <20000109121316.27085.00001168@ng-bg1.aol.com> <387A3896.A54ECDD7@averstar.com> <875ip4$kvq$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <875o42$71s2@news.cis.okstate.edu> Organization: MindSpring Enterprises X-Server-Date: 1 Feb 2000 18:24:14 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-02-01T18:24:14+00:00 List-Id: >On Tue, 01 Feb 2000 03:09:26 GMT, jedilowe@my-deja.com wrote: >> My question though, If Ada 95 has such powerful interface >>capabilities to other languages, why is translation even a question? Ada is a high-level language. C is a low-level language, closer to being a universal assembler. As such, translating to C sometimes makes it easier to generate the intermediate code that can be compiled to executable on a given platform. This approach is taken by other high-level languages, notably, Eiffel. There is a danger, though. C is less reliable than one might hope. There a lots of little gotchas. For example, direct translation to C from some strongly-typed high-level language can run into problems such as the famous integer overflow feature. For validated Ada, this is not a problem since a compiler that fails to accomodate this error from C would not pass validation. For current Eiffel compilers this is still a problem. Translation from one language to another is always a perilous undertaking. We use the word undertaking here in all of its meanings, including those that reflect morbidity. Richard Riehle richard@adaworks.com