Re: Commercial C To Ada 95 compiler

["SteveD" <nospam_steved94@attbi.com>]

"Marin David Condic" <dont.bother.mcondic.auntie.spam@[acm.org> wrote in
message news:ae28st$aqa$1@nh.pace.co.uk...
> 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...

Dang.  If I have to use this logic, I guess all my future projects will have
to be in C.  While I don't normally add C code to a project, most of my
projects do involve interfacing to C and require knowledge of C to create
the interfaces.

Just when I thought using Ada with existing C code was a good choice.
Thanks for setting me straight ;-)

> 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.

Your projects must involve deeper pockets than ours.  We usually try to
reuse as much code as possible... regardless of the language and rarely have
the opportunity to start with a "clean slate".

SteveD

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