scotr
Fri Jan 23 09:20:37 CST 2004
Hi Bruce,
Unfortunately the only Migration information really covers VB to VB.Net and involves a .Net wizard, that to me, is shall we say, rather
lacking in depth (If your VB Program is very complicated at all it would take less time to re-write the application than it would to debug what
the Wizard creates)
From my personal experience I had a few GW Basic projects that I had to bring up to date to VB6 a few years ago and it wasn't a picnic
and if memory serves it was GW Basic and HP Basic were (As most Basics then) almost the same animal.
Considering the scope of what you are doing however I would have to say that rather than following an incremental path of trying to create
a new UI to connect to the old database then eventually move to another database that you first start at the Database side and get a copy
of your data to there to work with and begin developing to the new database. then when it is complete roll it out and transfer your data
from the old system to the new (Perhaps even work them in 'tandem' for a bit to make sure the new system is correct before throwing out
the old)
Now Alan that replied to you earlier may have some expertise in this area and you appear to have taken this off line. but I for one would
like to hear about what you come up with.. But as I said before, there is no microsoft documentation available for this type of migration.
Scot Rose, MCSD
Microsoft Visual Basic Developer Support
Email : scotr@online.microsoft.com <Remove word online. from address>
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--------------------
>From: "Bruce Schechter" <bruce@coding-r-us.com>
>Subject: Legacy Application Reengineering (Basic to C#)
>Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 16:40:28 -0800
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>We currently have a financial application running on an HP 3000, written in
>Basic ( the old kind, with line numbers and single-character variable names,
>etc) with about 500K lines of code. It uses a no-longer-sold,
>non-relational, HP-proprietary database called Image. This application has
>many very happy customers, each utilizing it via terminal emulator software
>in remote locations.
>
>
>
>We are tentatively architecting a phased migration to a .NET solution, for
>obvious reasons. Likely, we would first create a cleaner presentation
>layer based on WinForms, then migrated business logic off the HP3000 to a
>Win 2003 server ( in C# code), and finally move the database to SQL Server.
>
>
>
>But.. none of us have experience with a legacy migration/reengineering
>process (particularly from such an antiquated code base.) Further, given
>our meager start-up funding level, we cannot afford to hire expensive
>consultants who specialize in this area.
>
>
>
>Does Microsoft provide resources with advice on the reengineering process?
>Whitepapers? Web resources? tools?
>
>
>
>Also, would anyone recommend good books on this topic? Or any other
>websites (other than just Microsoft's)?
>
>
>
>Are there conversion tools to convert Basic to C#?
>
>
>
>And, my MOST IMPORTANT question (pardon the all caps)... are there "rules
>of thumb" for estimating programmer resource requirements for migration
>based on lines of code, database schema complexity, etc.?
>
>
>
>Thanks,
>
>Bruce
>
>
>