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: 109fba,304c86061dc69dba X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,5cb36983754f64da X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2004-02-12 21:11:37 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news2.google.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!c03.atl99!sjc70.webusenet.com!news.usenetserver.com!pd7cy2so!shaw.ca!border1.nntp.ash.giganews.com!border2.nntp.sjc.giganews.com!border1.nntp.sjc.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.sjc.giganews.com!nntp.adelphia.com!news.adelphia.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 23:11:30 -0600 From: Jerry Coffin Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.c++ Subject: Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2004 22:18:26 -0700 Message-ID: References: <20040206174017.7E84F4C4114@lovelace.ada-france.org> <54759e7e.0402071124.322ea376@posting.google.com> <2460735.u7KiuvdgQP@linux1.krischik.com> <54759e7e.0402081525.50c7adae@posting.google.com> Organization: TAEUS X-Newsreader: MicroPlanet Gravity v2.50 NNTP-Posting-Host: 68.64.173.106 X-Trace: sv3-BCOEwezJarNOgzxQt+k/SaxOQewF0uWChhkRH55C9Q/j/KSHDsEfWyiprITi6IjJIAUmPjbirgqdrpb!mp1aF+eY5jCi+TFc7r2jL0G3tiwEASHfOy8zDY6hPs7p4RH4usfp7EOzvZW5rP2y0jOTej1RKHWB!SywObMeWPol+5gHeNB9SRMU= X-Complaints-To: abuse@adelphia.com X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@adelphia.com X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.1 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:5518 comp.lang.c++:18971 Date: 2004-02-12T22:18:26-07:00 List-Id: In article , crmeiners@hotmail.com says... > > "Jerry Coffin" wrote in message > news:MPG.1a9555bd517ba66d989c91@news.clspco.adelphia.net... > > > > As such, Ada is useless relative to that > > > > platform, regardless of how much merit it might have in theory. > > > > > > Not exactly true. There exist Ada to ANSI C compilers so you can make > > > use of Ada's compile time benefits for such platforms. > > > > Also rarely true > > Even if it is rarely true, it proves that your above statement is false. > Perhaps that is not what you intended to say, but it is what you wrote. More or less accurate, so to summarize the situation: there are quite a few platforms for which no Ada compiler exists, and no completely conforming C compiler exists to act as the target of an Ada to C translator. There may be (though I've never confirmed it) a small number of platforms for which there is no native Ada compiler, but the C compiler is able to act as the target of an Ada to C translator. There are also (of course) quite a few platforms for which native compilers for both Ada and C are available. > > -- for better or worse, the "ANSI C" compilers on many > > obscure (especially embedded) systems are "ANSI C" only by courtesy -- > > courtesy? An ANSI C compiler that doesn't compile ANSI C is incorrect. That's not entirely true: the C standard defines two types of systems: standalone implementations and hosted implementations. A typical compiler for UNIX, Windows, etc., is a hosted implementation, which includes the whole standard library. A typical compiler for an embedded system is a standalone implementation, which excludes essentially the entire library and most of the standard headers. I wouldn't want to go on record as saying it's truly _impossible_ to implement an Ada to C translator that doesn't require parts of the standard library, but rather doubt such a thing exists. > > In many cases, the editing that would be involved to make it work would > > theoretically be pretty trivial. > > In the trivial cases the backend for the translator can be modified by the > vendor. Maybe -- or maybe not. First you have to get the vendor to cooperate. Second, you have to read through the (usually mind-bendingly horrible) C it has produced to try to figure out what's going wrong. Third, you have to figure out how to make that work with the compiler in question. Theoretically, this might be trivial. In fact, not even one of those three steps is likely to be trivial in practice, and the concatenation of all three is likely to be anything but. -- Later, Jerry. The universe is a figment of its own imagination.