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=-0.4 required=5.0 tests=AC_FROM_MANY_DOTS,BAYES_00 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,85034d1ac78a66eb X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-03-15 21:45:42 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!colt.net!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!psiuk-p2!psiuk-p3!uknet!psiuk-n!news.pace.co.uk!nh.pace.co.uk!not-for-mail From: "Marin David Condic" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada Operating System Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 15:14:16 -0500 Organization: Posted on a server owned by Pace Micro Technology plc Message-ID: References: <3c77b476.322111671@news.cis.dfn.de> <3C88E0D1.89161C16@despammed.com> <3C8F5D44.2E2E2EE7@despammed.com> <3C9249ED.45CD8ED2@attbi.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: dhcp-200-133.miami.pace.co.uk X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 1016223257 15638 136.170.200.133 (15 Mar 2002 20:14:17 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@news.cam.pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 15 Mar 2002 20:14:17 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:21321 Date: 2002-03-15T20:14:17+00:00 List-Id: But that's just it: Doing a rewrite of Multix to include The Ada Way(tm) would of necessity mandate some redesign. Making a Multix look-alike might be of some value to somebody, but you wouldn't want to just do a translation. I believe that The Ada Way would be much more than a tweak. How would you get any Ada advantages from strong type checking, etc., unless you review the design and decide that a bunch of things that used to be kept in raw UI32's now need to be distinguished from each other? Then you've got to start thinking about those types needing to be in packages with appropriate operations on them. Pretty soon, you're tossing out whole chunks of existing code in Ada-Bar (the original language of implementation) because they can't be easily translated using the new types/packages. Before you know it, you're about as far from a "translation" as you can get. If there's no advantage to writing Ada-tran then there's no advantage to a simple translation. A plug-compatible redesign of something *might* have some reason to exist, but I still think if you're going to "get out of the boat" you'd better go all the way. (Build somethig that serves the original function, but design it to be new, innovative and go beyond the original app.) BTW: A friend of mine once told me of a JCL interpreter written to be a Unix shell - "because you knew somebody had to do it!" So wierder things have been done than reimplementing Multix. :-) MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Mark Biggar" wrote in message news:3C9249ED.45CD8ED2@attbi.com... > > I don't know, a reimplementation of Multix in Ada, suitably tweaked to > the > "Ada Way" would be a really interesting project. >