Re: Commercial C To Ada 95 compiler

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

Well, there's good C code and bad C code, so one has to take it on a case by
case basis. The thing of it is, if one is confronted with a body of code
large enough to warrant some kind of auto-translation, one has to ask "why?"
and be careful. If its well written and well documented and not too large to
be a problem with understanding, then why auto-translate? Why not just read
it, understand it and re-write it? (or use it as-is?) That way the developer
doing the work is now up to speed on the internals of the code and you're
not confronted with unmaintainable crap from some auto-generator.

If its too big, poorly documented or poorly constructed - thus motivating an
auto-translation - then you're going to end up with a body of code nobody
understands and that nobody can enhance or maintain. (and is probably going
to be broken in the auto-translation phase!) This is possibly O.K. for a
short-term, quick-and-dirty fix (although I have my doubts) but it would be
disasterous if you have to live with it for some length of time. More likely
something like this will cost more in the long run than just biting the
bullet and redesigning it - especially if you think you need new features
along the way.

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


"Wes Groleau" <wesgroleau@despammed.com> wrote in message
news:3D062797.15D77E1B@despammed.com...
>
> Indeed.  Updating code without changing languages
> sometimes takes a lot of change.
>
> The fact that it was written in C makes a high probability
> that it will REALLY take a lot of work--unless you personally
> know that a top-quality process was followed to create it.
>