Re: Commercial C To Ada 95 compiler

["Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org>]

Fair enough, but there is *way* more that goes into the overall costs on a
project besides the compiler. Maintaining two languages on the same project
means things like maintaining expertise in two languages instead of one. It
often means maintenance of different toolsets - especially home-grown
tools - to deal with both languages. It can mean increased maintenance
headaches because of having to track down bugs in two compilers instead of
one. (Even if its the same compiler, its really got two different parts, so
you multiply your risk of errors) It can mean increased costs in
configuration management. Etc., etc. etc...

Some projects are small enough and simple enough that glomming onto some
chunk of useful C code and utilizing Gnat to compile both the C and Ada
might not present that big of a problem. However, for projects that might be
long lived, large, complex, etc., you really would be inviting increased
costs and risks by going to multiple languages. I certainly wouldn't choose
to do it that way if I had a clean slate (would anyone?) so any attempt to
do so is, IMHO, a compromise that needs to be justified carefully.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com


"Stephen Leake" <stephen_leake@acm.org> wrote in message
news:wkk7p8qgbb.fsf@acm.org...
>
> I understand this is your example, but I'd like to point out that with
> modern compilers, maintaining code in multiple languages is not as
> hard as many people seem to think.
>
> Gnu C and Gnu Ada link together, and work very well together. The same
> is true of Greenhills Ada and Greenhills C (although I have not
> personally used that combination).
>
> So keeping parts of the original C while converting parts to Ada
> should be given serious consideration.
>