Re: Let's cover this one more time...

[CONDIC@PSAVAX.PWFL.COM]

From: Marin David Condic, 407.796.8997, M/S 731-93
Subject: Re: Let's cover this one more time...
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Original_cc:  CONDIC



Nick Sizemore <sizemore@HUACHUCA-EMH17.ARMY.MIL> writes:
>         Is there some reason, either in priciple or in practice, why such
>    tools (as opposed to the line by line 'converters') are out of the
>    question for the project described?  I do know of at least one company
>    locally which used the McCabe tools to re-engineer an Ada system
>    (i.e., no conversion) and was pleased with the results.  Just asking -
>    I have no vested interest.
>
It's more of a personal bias - I don't believe that an automated
translation of "legacy" code from *any* language to *any other*
language is ever going to be done well. By this, I mean you will
end up with code that is not very intelligible or will use obscure
language constructs to insure correct translation and in general
will be more difficult to work with than the original system.
(Ever wonder why people generally don't want to mess with the
assembler output of a compiler?)

Throw on top of it that we are talking about a fairly old and
really large body of FORTRAN code to be translated. Sight unseen,
most of us would out-of-hand admit that we can do a better job of
"engineering" a system today than was originally done back in the
mid-70's. Sight seen - I can asure you this is the case.

I'd prefer to make the case that it would be more cost effective
(say, over five years) to reengineer the system from the ground
up than it would be to auto-translate it and spend forever
patching the code until it works.

Pax,
Marin


Marin David Condic, Senior Computer Engineer    ATT:        407.796.8997
M/S 731-93                                      Technet:    796.8997
Pratt & Whitney, GESP                           Internet:   CONDICMA@PWFL.COM
P.O. Box 109600                                 Internet:   MDCONDIC@AOL.COM
West Palm Beach, FL 33410-9600
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