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From: dmocsny@uceng.UC.EDU (daniel mocsny)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next,comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Fortran and Pascal
Summary: why not language translators?
Message-ID: <384@uceng.UC.EDU>
Date: 4 Nov 88 16:38:21 GMT
References: <471@wucs1.wustl.edu> <4391@ubc-cs.UUCP> <485@wucs1.wustl.edu> <3f6ce6e8.59b7@sauron.engin.umich.edu>
Organization: Univ. of Cincinnati, College of Engg.
Lines: 37

In article <3f6ce6e8.59b7@sauron.engin.umich.edu>, jfm@ruddles.sprl.umich.edu.engin.umich.edu (John F. Mansfield) writes:
> OK, now for a major question, not all of us have time to rewrite all our
> old code in C. So the question is what are the compilers that will be 
> available for the nExt machine?
> 
> Sorry to mention Fortran, but I use it.

Don't apologize for using Fortran. Once I took a week out to pick up Pascal,
I never touched Fortran again, but if it works for you, great. You've made
an intellectual investment in learning the tools that were available
before you were tied up making money. If you spent
your time trying to learn all the languages available, you might find one
much better suited to your application. However, you wouldn't get any work
done in the interim. You can't spend your whole life trying to get ready
to work.

The most expensive computer component you own is the code you have written.
Why must the computer manufacturers constantly attempt to destroy your
wealth by not acknowledging this? If they won't provide compilers, then
why can't they make a serious effort to provide source-code translators?
Instead, this is a fringe market left to third-parties or individuals. If
you had a robust Fortran-to-C translator (especially if it could
de-spaghetti-fy your code), then you could effectively ``mine'' your
Fortran source and move ``up'' to new languages and hardware, without
losing your investment. Incidentally, the best way to learn a new language
is to study such a translation of code that you know and understand.
That way you see how to do things in a new language that you already
know how to do in the old language, speeding your comprehension. Then
you can start picking up those new features that have no obvious
parallel in the old language.

Individuals and corporations have $ billions sunk into Fortran and Cobol
code. If the computer vendors refuse to acknowledge this, forcing customers
to sink additional $ billions into re-writing all of it, they might as
well be tossing Molotov cocktails into your office.

Dan Mocsny