Re: Porting Ada to C (Stealth development)

[Ray Blaak <blaak@telus.net>]

Dan Andreatta <andreatta@mail.chem.sc.edu.REMOVEME> writes:
> pontius@btv.MBI.com.invalid (Dale Pontius) wrote in 
> news:a26o04$jfc$1@news.btv.ibm.com:
> 
> > I am taking up some new work, and would like to do it in Ada. However
> > there is a strong 'Do it in C so others can pick it up' bias, which I
> > guess makes some sense. So I'd like to do my development in Ada, and
> > have the occasional conversion to C to play well with others. This
> > probably needs to be free, as well, since it wouldn't cost money if
> > if I just started the project in C. (Can't justify) I did a quick scan
> > at www.adahome.org without luck. I'll also need to link in C libs, but
> > that should be straightforward and in the documentation.

If it has to be in C so that others can potentially develop and maintain it,
then it makes no sense to convert to C from Ada at all.

Conversion raises issues that otherwise would not exist, simply complicating
things, creating unnecessary problems.  Think about it: any C warts and issues
will exist anyway, and with conversion you would further have to deal Ada->C
incompatibilities, possible unusal link libraries, potentially unnatural
machine generated C code, etc.

Write it in C from the beginning. Just use your "Ada sensibilities" to ensure
that your C code is the best on your team.

-- 
Cheers,                                        The Rhythm is around me,
                                               The Rhythm has control.
Ray Blaak                                      The Rhythm is inside me,
blaak@telus.net                                The Rhythm has my soul.