Re: ADA to C converter, the dream ?

Re: ADA to C converter, the dream ?

[Robert Dewar]

Rusty says

"Why don't you use the gnat (Ada 95) compiler.  It is a front end to the
gcc compiler.  Perhaps there is a switch to generate C code??"

And perhaps there is not, there is also no switch to generate Fortran,
Algol or natural language Chinese (none of which are any less likely
than C, given that in no sense does GNAT translate into C :-)

Re: ADA to C converter, the dream ?

[Robert Dewar]

T.E.D. says

"I feel the momentum for changing Gnat's name building..."

Well, we don't :-) We have no intention of changing the name.

And in any case, to think that a mere name change will prevent people
having misconceptions is, I am afraid, unrealistic :-)

Also, we prefer to still capitalize it as GNAT :-)

We discussed having a competition to determine the best after the fact
acronym for GNAT (so far we are rather partial to the "Great New Ada
Technology" suggestion :-) 

Re: ADA to C converter, the dream ?

[Richard A. O'Keefe]

dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
>And in any case, to think that a mere name change will prevent people
>having misconceptions is, I am afraid, unrealistic :-)

*Prevent*, no.  Nothing can prevent people having misconceptions.
*Reduce the likelihood* of misconceptions; that surely is not unrealistic.

>Also, we prefer to still capitalize it as GNAT :-)

Ah, so it's still an acronym.

>We discussed having a competition to determine the best after the fact
>acronym for GNAT (so far we are rather partial to the "Great New Ada
>Technology" suggestion :-) 

Ah, a Gnomic New Acronym Tournament...

-- 
Election time; but how to get Labour _out_ without letting Liberal _in_?
Richard A. O'Keefe; http://www.cs.rmit.edu.au/~ok; RMIT Comp.Sci.

Re: ADA to C converter, the dream ?

[Keith Thompson]

In <4gaudo$1u0@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU> ok@goanna.cs.rmit.EDU.AU (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> >We discussed having a competition to determine the best after the fact
> >acronym for GNAT (so far we are rather partial to the "Great New Ada
> >Technology" suggestion :-) 
> 
> Ah, a Gnomic New Acronym Tournament...

GNAT's Not A Typo

GNAT's Not an Acronym, Theoretically

Get your Next Ada compiler from Thomson	   8-)}  8-)}

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst@thomsoft.com
TeleSoft^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Alsys^H^H^H^H^H Thomson Software Products
10251 Vista Sorrento Parkway, Suite 300, San Diego, CA, USA, 92121-2718
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." -- Arthur Carlson, WKRP

Re: ADA to C converter, the dream ?

[David Weller]

In article <Dn2LB0.CDx@thomsoft.com>, Keith Thompson <kst@thomsoft.com> wrote:
>
>Get your Next Ada compiler from Thomson	   8-)}  8-)}
>

Candidate for this year's "Cohen Award" (Most twisted humor on
comp.lang.ada) :-)

-- 
		    GNAT = GNAT is Not an Ada Translator
==Ada 95 Booch Components: www.ocsystems.com/booch or www.dfw.net/~dweller==
Reality: Work, Work, Work, Guitar.         | Plugged: Fender Telecaster Deluxe
Fantasy: Guitar, Guitar, Guitar, Work(ha!) | Unplugged: Yamaha CG-150SA

Re: ADA to C converter, the dream ?

[Tore Joergensen]

Ted Dennison (dennison@escmail.orl.mmc.com) wrote:
: Rusty Baldwin wrote:
: > Why don't you use the gnat (Ada 95) compiler.  It is a front end to the
: > gcc compiler.  Perhaps there is a switch to generate C code??

: ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRG!

: (sigh)

: I feel the momentum for changing Gnat's name building...

It woudn't help anything to rename gnat. You would have to rename gcc, to
make people understand that the C-part is just a front end to the gcc, in
the same way that gnat is it. Wouldn't it be nice if it was called ggc
(gnu generic compiler) instead? That is probably close to impossible to
accomplish though. That would be like changing the B in IBM because not
all machines are used for business anymore, or change soft in Microsoft
because they sell some hardware too. Not very likely to happen.  
--
+-------------------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Tore B. Joergensen      | e-mail : tore@lis.pitt.edu                |
| Centre Court Villa      | web    : http://www.pitt.edu/~tojst1      |
| 5535 Centre Avenue # 6  |                                           |
| Pgh, PA 15232, USA      | Norwegian MSIS-student at Univ. of Pgh.   |
+-------------------------+-------------------------------------------+

Re: ADA to C converter, the dream ?

[Tore Joergensen]

Rusty Baldwin (rbaldwin@nvi.nvi.net) wrote:
: Thomas G. McWilliams wrote:
: > There exists a good Pascal to C translator called p2c available
: > in source code form (I think it might be GNU software). It might
: > serve as a rough basis on which to build something like this.
: > Perhaps you could run your Ada code through some Perl filters
: > and post-process with p2c. Very hackish, I know. Maybe a Modula
: > to C translator could be hacked more easily.
: Why don't you use the gnat (Ada 95) compiler.  It is a front end to the
: gcc compiler.  Perhaps there is a switch to generate C code??

C and C++ are two other front ends to the gcc compiler. I'm quite sure
that there isn't any switch for converting code between different 
front ends (wouldn't that be nice; C to C++ and Ada95 converter). BTW,
there are several other front ends too.
--
+-------------------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Tore B. Joergensen      | e-mail : tore@lis.pitt.edu                |
| Centre Court Villa      | web    : http://www.pitt.edu/~tojst1      |
| 5535 Centre Avenue # 6  |                                           |
| Pgh, PA 15232, USA      | Norwegian MSIS-student at Univ. of Pgh.   |
+-------------------------+-------------------------------------------+

Re: ADA to C converter, the dream ?

[Simon Johnston]

> T.E.D. says
>
> "I feel the momentum for changing Gnat's name building..."
>
> Well, we don't :-) We have no intention of changing the name.
>
> And in any case, to think that a mere name change will prevent people
> having misconceptions is, I am afraid, unrealistic :-)
>
> Also, we prefer to still capitalize it as GNAT :-)
>
> We discussed having a competition to determine the best after the fact
> acronym for GNAT (so far we are rather partial to the "Great New Ada
> Technology" suggestion :-)

I like GNAT, it is simple, easy to remember and *doesn't* need to mean
anything! (if it did have to then this latest suggestion is fine by me). If
this thing come to a vote I will have to side with the keep GNAT campaign.


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