[Discuss] FORTRAN -> ???

[jack at coats.org (Jack Coats)]

I worked for a big oil company.  They had put a lot of time and effort into
doing RPG-II programs on a 'former generation of equipment'.

PL/I was the 'new big thing', before C was around.  So we wrote an
RPG-II to PL/I
converter in PL/I. ... It was pretty easy until one feature was found.
 Basically when
the RPG-II tables function was used, we would code it's logic in PL/I by hand.
I had to learn RPG-II (and had not long before learned PL/I after doing assembly
and FORTRAN in college).  Someone elses design, I just coded it.

Still it was a good hack.  Saved the company lots of $$ by being able to move
from older to newer equipment.  They eventually saved even more by re-coding
the application systems that had used the converted code into native PL/I.


On another system, I maintained code that that was originally written in PL/I.
It was run through a PL/I to COBOL translator.  And was maintained in
COBOL.  After a few years, we purchased the software and re-coded
high use/high maintenance sections back into native PL/I.  Faster, cleaner code
was the result.  Maintaining converted code takes lots of manpower.


... The moral is, IMHO, the best idea for moving from one language to another
is to re-analyze the application.  Take in any list of deficiencies,
and 'must have's
and design and wright the new system. ... Code to code conversions are OK,
but have a limited lifetime.  ...  Newly analyzed systems and new coding
typically add a significant amount back into the viable lifetime of
custom coded
applications.

... Just some notions after being in the trenches way to long.