Re: Who uses Java?

From:

Mark Space <markspace@sbc.global.net>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.java.programmer

Date:

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:53:06 GMT

Message-ID:

<msfBj.25571$J41.23171@newssvr14.news.prodigy.net>

Jon Harrop wrote:

Mark Space wrote:

Jon Harrop wrote:

We can retarget languages easily so it makes no difference to us.

"Retarget?" Do you mean re-write you application in a new language? Or
perhaps you mean that future applications are still in the planning
stage and could be implemented in any choosen language? Something else
maybe?

I mean the code is autogenerated from a high-level language-agnostic
definition. So we define a backend to generate another language (like Java)
and click a button to get millions of lines of Java source code. Then we
write a more idiomatic veneer by hand and sell it.

This sounds a bit like using YACC (and similar programs) to generate a
compilers from a grammar specification, or using a hardware description
language (Verilog, etc.) to create new chips. I've never thought about
trying to solve general purpose programming problems with a tool like that.

Do you mind if I ask what language and tool you use for your high-level
definitions and auto-generation? Is it something entirely in house or
did you derive if from some external product?

Thinking about this a bit more, with auto-generation, you could skip the
whole Java compilation step and just go directly to JVM byte codes.
This might also allow you to easily provide features that Java doesn't
support directly, for example features that Java requires you use a
separate tool like AspectJ. Then just write your "veneer" in hand-coded
Java.