We have a substantial existing base of Lisp code which we have to
start porting to C, and the customer is interested in getting
maintainable C code out of it. I'm interested in advice from those who
have actually done this on what works, and what doesn't. We're in a
commercial setting, have quite a large system, and development time is
at a premium, so we're looking for some turbo-boosters for the
process.
In particular:
- any experience with Chestnut Hill, whose software purports to
translate Lisp into (unreadable, i believe) C?
- any commercial/free C/C++ libraries that have Lisp programmers in
mind? (for example, a stripped-down version of the Lisp reader in C
would be great)
- any stories from real porting projects, especially things like
"don't touch ___ with a 10-foot pole" or "___ took 10 times longer
than we thought", etc.?
- any comments on how to keep portability across various OS in the
process (our main interest right now is UNIX and Mac System 7, but
we have to keep our options open for the IBM world too).
I'm sure there are those who, like myself, wonder why anyone would
require C when Lisp is available: nevertheless, our customers are
always right, so that's not the point here.
Probably email to me is the most appropriate reply, unless your
information is very general or warrants discussion. I can post a
summary if there are enough replies.
........................................
Sean Boisen -- ·······@bbn.com
BBN Systems and Technologies, Cambridge MA
--
Sean