On Sun, 20 Oct 2013, Eric Funk Antispam wrote:
We have a lot of legacy compiled code where I work. All we can do is write
interface software that compensates for known shortcomings, bugs, etc, of the
old code. (We don't have access to the source, and can't edit the existing).
Sometimes we can look at the underlying database, and sometimes we can inject
code there (or fiddle a specific date field, for example), and then run the
legacy code on it.
With military applications, this could extend to voltage probes and some
hardware overrides...
On the other hand, if the alien language is a millennia-long standard, once
you set up one interface language, it could help for all their technology.
That said, consider the Rosetta stone -- one translator treated the job as a
code, the other as a language, and both got to the same end near the same
time... In our example, one person could start by interpreting the words on
screen, while an engineer could start at the functions, then work up...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone
--
Eric Funk
Knowledge Brings Fear -- Motto of Mars University, Futurama
The reason for legacy code it most often, that there are not the resources
and the manpower available to write it new. You could get such a
situation, if you want to run some computer controlled alien hardware from
a human computer.
An other possiblity is, that you want to use alien software libraries,
because they are better somehow, then what we have. All we need for that
is either a compiler for alien software and a way to make interfaces
between alien and our software, or a way to translate alien computer
language into one of our own.
I don't see that as a big problem, once we have enough basic understanding
of their computer science.
An interesting matter would be how much we trust the software. If we find
archeological evidence, that the aliens have throughly tested the
function, is that good enough, or do humans need to do their own tests?
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