HACKER Q&A
📣 zxienin

Need for openly available source-to-source compilation projects


Is there need for openly available, batteries included, source-to-source compilation projects?

I talk being able to transpile from one programming language source to another (java to rust, cobol to java and so on).

There is of course, option like ANTLR, though it leaves ground wide open after parsing.

IMHO having such tool can help renovate legacy codebases easier, minimize over focus on programming language decisioning in greenfield projects. Yet, despite noticing organizations always burdened with managing old codebases, surprisingly there aren't such tools built out in the open. Why? Do I mis-judge the demand space as being strong?

  👤 detaro Accepted Answer ✓
I don't think demand is particularly large: do you have examples of projects that used source-to-source compilation on a large scale (outside the web ecosystem, which is very much a special case). And I especially don't think they are good candidates for being open tools, especially if porting "forwards" to more modern languages, but much more likely to be inhouse tools of companies specializing in ports.