Re: Porting Ada to C (Stealth development)

[pontius@btv.MBI.com.invalid (Dale Pontius)]

In article <3C47375B.8060604@worldnet.att.net>,
        Jim Rogers <jimmaureenrogers@worldnet.att.net> writes:
> Dale Pontius wrote:
>
>> I am taking up some new work, and would like to do it in Ada. However
>> there is a strong 'Do it in C so others can pick it up' bias, which I
>> guess makes some sense. So I'd like to do my development in Ada, and
>
>
> Actually, it makes no sense, but opening that can or worms begins the
> language war. If a person is a competent C programmer he or she should
> be able to learn a new language with minimal effort. My own experience
> is that it was easier to learn Ada, knowing C first, than it was to
> read and understand a lot of C programs.
>
Doesn't matter. This is a rather conservative area, and "C is the way
to program, though perhaps C++ or Java would be OK." Note that this is
also not a programming area, it's silicon design. Sometimes you have
to turn part-time programmer to get the silicon out. This is one of
those.

...
>> have the occasional conversion to C to play well with others. This
>> probably needs to be free, as well, since it wouldn't cost money if
>> if I just started the project in C. (Can't justify) I did a quick scan
>> at www.adahome.org without luck. I'll also need to link in C libs, but
>> that should be straightforward and in the documentation.
>
> When you say "play well with others", do you mean that others will
> take over the maintenance of the C pieces, or simply that others will
> want to call the Ada libraries from C? These are really two different
> issues, and should be handled separately.
>
One perpetual concern is, "How does this stuff get maintained when
XXXX moves on?" For that reason, they want a mainstream language,
especially considering (as mentioned above) the programmers here do
it on the side, not as a profession.
>
...
> Is there already any history of mixed-language development for your
> team? This includes such pieces as shell scripts, perl scripts,
> C++ libraries, or assembler routines. My guess is that your product
> already uses some mixture of C and other languages. This situation
> is not currently a political problem. Try to deal with Ada in this
> light.
>
Obviously yet. Mix of C, C++, ksh, perl, rexx, and I've thrown Python
into the mix. But I suspect Ada is too far out for acceptance. I had
a tough enough time getting VHDL in where needed, and avoiding a
Verilog-only mandate, but only because Verilog couldn't have easily
done that part of the job. The bulk of the HDL is still Verilog, and
the VHDL will get translated after doing its special part.

As I mentioned on the other subthread, Ada to C, C++, or Java would
probably be equally acceptable.

Dale Pontius
NOT speaking for IBM