Re: Ada to C++ translator?

[Ted Dennison <dennison@telepath.com>]

In article <3A844255.24A4DBA3@lmco.com>,
  Robert Brantley <robert.brantley@lmco.com> wrote:
> Any recommendations on a Ada to C++ translator?  We have no Ada
> tasking constructs to deal with.

(sigh) Poor guy.

As you have probably gathered from all the snide comments, there isn't a
program to do this. There are some around for C, but none for C++. The
best I can think of would be to use one of those UML reverse-engieering
tools to get UML from Ada, then use its code generator to spit back out
C++. But I wouldn't suggest doing that. Most likely you'll just end up
with the biggest mess the world has seen since my 3-year-old got into my
old wargame boxes.

I'd say we could probably provide more help if you told us what you are
trying to accomplish by doing that, but that would probably just be
opening yourself up to more abuse (when most likely its your managment
that deserves the abuse).

Translation tools can be used successfully in some circumstances, but
they won't generally produce the kind of code you'd want to have to
maintain for years to come. Most of the time some stuff won't translate
very well, and will have to be hand-massaged on the output or on the
input side. The process will probably introduce some new bugs, so you
will have to redo all the code's testing, debugging, and acceptance
phases. If the code is mission-critical, you will also want someone to
go over the output with a fine-toothed comb to mare sure there aren't
any obscure lurking nasties. Odds are any good developer who has to go
through all this is going to be sorely tempted to rewrite the code
anyway to make it into more idomatic C++. So its not going to be easy or
cheap. Thus translation should be used as an emergency last resort, not
as a magic wand.

Now, I hate to join the Greek chorus here, but is it *truly* that much
of an emergency? The only reason I could think of that would ever make
it worth the effort would be if there were a platform out there that I
*had* to use for some reason that had no Ada (or C) compiler available
for it.

--
T.E.D.

http://www.telepath.com/~dennison/Ted/TED.html


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