Re: Why no serious MS Application in .NET yet ??

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From: Vyacheslav Lanovets (xentrax_umail.ru)
Date: 03/09/05

  • Next message: Kjetil Kristoffer Solberg: "Managed module" 
    Date: Wed, 9 Mar 2005 23:02:27 +0300

    Hello, Bob!
    You wrote on Tue, 8 Mar 2005 10:07:26 -0700:

     BG> Having said that, there does eventually come a time and place where it
     BG> becomes compelling to rewrite any code base, even in the absence of
     BG> motivators like new technology platforms, changing requirements,
     BG> difficulty in locating or developing expertise, or the winds of
     BG> politics. Any body of code that has been through enough revisions can
     BG> benefit tremendously from a complete rewrite, lest it become like a
     BG> bedroom closet full of miscellaneous add-ons and false starts. The
     BG> larger the body of code, and the more people who have worked on it, and
     BG> the less satisfactory the original architectural decisions were, the
     BG> truer this is. The trick is always how to decide where that tipping
     BG> point is.

    I agree with you but not completely :) From one point of view, complete
    rewrite is cool - it's interesting to use new technologies from the latest
    MSDN Magazine / C++ Users Journal issues :) The system developed looks like
    Christmas Tree with all of the different stuff on it :) Then, when it
    becomes too overloaded and new technologies become old and are going to die,
    there is a time for complete rewrite.

    But, besides of all obvious economical reasons not to spend time on complete
    rewrite there are some more points from my developer's point of view.

    One is that sometimes the greatest value of the code is not the code itself
    but _what_ was coded - the logic and the algorithms. If some algorithm's
    implementation in C was fine 10 years ago, still fine now, and will be fine
    in 10 years, why it should be implemented in VB.Net? Reason of this is that
    nobody made complete rewrite of linear algebra or discrete math recently:)

    The second one is refactoring. I saw many projects where developers did only
    what they were said to do. And in most straightforward way. On the top of
    this some of them tried to use brand new technologies (just from recent MSDN
    Mag issue). But I saw projects where developers tried to refactor to some
    extent - in this case each revision added not only features but code
    quality. While I understand why first projects should be completely
    rewritten, second ones usually can live without it.

    And the third one - after several revisions during _normal_ development
    process the software becomes near-to-perfect. I mean it's hard to make it
    better from the first try, particularly in new language and under new
    platform.

    I think about this every time when we find a bug in the code which worked
    and was tested for years! With every new bug found the system becomes more
    and more perfect, I can not believe it's possible to write such from
    scratch.

    So, when you say that revisions only make product worse then it means that
    something wrong with development. The problem of such software products
    where revisions just spoil the code lies in relationship between developers
    and management. From my experience, it's enough to have several (10-20%)
    good developers or good PM to avoid this.

    For instance, I always note what files changed when I check out files from
    VCS, and if I see incorrect decision made by my colleague, and this code
    relates to my responsibilities, and I do not have time at the moment, then I
    add new item to my Tasks in Outlook - to not to forget to fix that.

    I would agree, that there are times when there is a need in complete
    _refactor_ but not rewrite.

    With best regards, Vyacheslav Lanovets. E-mail: xentrax_umail.ru

  • Next message: Kjetil Kristoffer Solberg: "Managed module"

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