Welcome to MGL, Software conversion

	Marc's PHP Debuggers home page

	07/02/2012
About PHPDebugger Home Download Registration Documentation Samples Screen shots Other activities Company info Domains Methods & Techniques Ownership References Projects in the past More info How it started	About Marc's Approach to Conversion Compilers For many years now, I am working in data processing. A great part of it is in conversion projects. This means Language-language, Operating system conversions, Data (base) conversions, etc. Time after time I learned new things, I had new experiences, but also bad experiences, good luck and bad luck. I tried to keep a copy of all the conversion routines I wrote over the years. In the beginning, even on paper and preferably in punched cards, later on tape and then in the late 80s on diskette. But I didn't realize I never reused them. Every new project had something different anyway which made it impossible to reuse the code. Only the idea behind it was worth to remember. Eventually, my wife insisted to get rid of the things I didn't touch for the last 15 years! (Fortunately, she helps me with important decisions.) You can hardly say she isn't right if we talk in terms of 15 years and older, being in a world changing as fast as data processing. So one day, I decided to throw it all away. There are no more card readers anyway; the tapes will be unreadable by now; no more 5 inch and 8 inch diskette readers; so I got rid of everything. Nothing to worry about, I still have everything between the ears! But over time, I have been using all kinds of techniques to do conversions. Of course I came across Lex and Yacc, I met Sed and Awk too, but I only managed to bring these conversions to a good end through hard work and sometimes sleepless nights. Even not having any conversion problem to solve, I constantly try to find new methods and techniques. Just in case problems might occur. Being prepared is always a good thing. When I first came across Yacc, I found it was a great thing. I didn't realize how horrible it is to write all the syntax rules, not to mention the (shift-reduce) errors that might occur at generation time. For those of you who don't know what these terms mean: 'Praise the Lord and be happy!' The purpose of MACC is to take all the advantages of Yacc, eliminating its disadvantages. Daydreaming? Probably not and it has nothing to do with (black) magic. It is simply the result of solution driven brain storming exercises between me and myself during sometimes huge traffic jams.