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from Cobol/Natural to Java translation

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municipal

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Jan 1, 2001
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Hi All.

We are considering to transform all our applications from Natural or Cobol to Java.

Natural is procedural language like Cobol.

There is a Product which produces Java code out of Natural Code . what is your opinion about such step?
TIA.
 
I would expect the resulting java code to be very 'mechanistic' in its implementation. I would be impressed if the code followed any appropriate high-level design patterns, or be as concise as hand-written code <b>could</b> be.

You'll probably have to go in and tweak some of the Java.

One important aspect of good OO design is to 'encapsulate what varies', or is likely to vary. How would a conversion tool be able to tell what bits might vary? That's something only humans with a design plan would know. This could lead to maintenance / future expansion problems.

I would get an evaluation version of the tool and try it out.

To sum up my overall opinion of tools like this:- Machines can produce code, but it takes a human to produce a good design which good code can flow from.
 
Hi municipal,
if it is a real cross compiler I would expect that it really works.
I would however expect procedural code rather than true OO code - this would require a redesign. However I would expect that the generated code could be maintained with reasonable learning effort by the then ex Natural people.
I stumbled across such a tool and it worked surprisingly well.
 
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