Conference turris::languages

70.0. "Syntax-Directed Editor" by GRAFIX::STANSBURY () Tue Aug 06 1985 09:57

I saw this on the USENET recently. Even though I thought it looked like an
interesting idea, I'm not sure what its benefits are.

     Newsgroups: net.lang.ada
     Path: decwrl!decvax!yale!faust!gjs
     Subject: Re: Orphaned Response
     Posted: Fri Jul 26 15:35:00 1985
     Organization: 
     Nf-ID: #R:lll-crg:-69000:faust:22100003:177600:658
     Nf-From: faust!gjs    Jul 26 18:35:00 1985
      
     I recently saw a demo of the Xinotech Program Composer, an advanced
     syntax-directed editor.  It runs on IBM PC and AT, and supports
     multiple views of your program.  That is, once a program has been read
     or typed in, you can view it as Ada, as Pascal, as Fortran, as Cobol,
     etc.  There are obvious limitations with respect to common language
     constructs.  I have no idea how large a program it can handle.
      
     Contact:
         Xinotech Research, Inc.
         520 2nd Avenue S.E.
         Suite 307
         Minneapolis, Minnesota 55414
         612-623-4879
      
     I have no connection with Xinotech, except that I saw their demo.
      
         -- George Snyder -- Intermetrics, Inc. -- inmet!gjs --

Does anyone have any idea why it would be beneficial to see your program
in different languages?

Jack

This allows you to use a compiler of choice.  Although the generator runs
on an IBM PC/AT, you may want to port the generated program to a different
machine, and different compilers may generate better/worse code.  Dependant
sur votre familiarite avec les languages, vous desire voire les results en
une language particular.  Many software houses must produce programs in a
particular language, so that the customer can compile/modify it.  Or you
may want to modify it, yet be unfamiliar with Cobol or Ada.  By having the
same program available in several languages, you my be able to reduce the
costs of training your developers.

P.S.  I'm surprised that Basic and C aren't in the list of languages.

This was mentioned in the Ada notesfile too, in a sigada(?) trip report.
Apparently it is "compiling" your code into a common intermediate
representation as you type it in.  You don't have source code as we
have it; it rather displays the intermediate code in the language of your
choice.

Interesting...

Brian