Advice needed

[Guest]

I hope I'm in the correct forum. Please advise if I need to move this question.

I've a lead developer who insists on developing with classic ASP & VB6. He &
his team have created an impressive set of web pages, relying to a great
extent on COM+ components. Normally I want to stay out of other people's
hair, especially regarding how they do their job, afterall I don't appreciate
it when someone tries to tell me how to administer the LAN.

I've been trying to encourage them to migrate everything to DotNet. I've
argued better security capabilities, quicker development time, faster
response time, etc. They say security is my job - thinking it begins & ends
at the firewall. Don't believe it could be quicker that their current mode of
development. And argue that if faster response time is needed then I need to
put the sites on faster servers.

Before I enter another iteration of this discussion, I'd like some
additional arguments. So far I've come up with the following:
New programmers won't want to work with their tools. They may not even know
how to develop in their environment.
I need to implemet new change control procedures, so that we have a
migration path from development to production. They will not be able to logon
to web servers & make a quick fix.

Can anyone help me expand my list of reasons to upgrade to DotNet?

Thanks

 

[Miro]

From a programmers point of view - vb.net is the "latest version / next step up".

Maybe not enforce the switch, but get your programmers to try to re-program something they have
done in vb6 in .net .

Its a programmers best interest to stay somewhat "current" with new languages. A programmer
does not want to come out of one "job" and find the world has passed them by.

I came out of school ( pre .net in early 99 ), worked for a company and used a 4gl language.
Then left after about 6 years, and found it very hard to find something compatible with my
skills. I now am trying to learn .net on my own time - but it would have been a zillion
times more beneficial if I would have and could have learned some new skills while at work,
and have the advantage of having "other programmers" in the same boat to help learn.

Maybe putting it into the programmers hands and saying...ok this project your "doubling".
( yes time does cost money )... but let the programmers see and feel the difference of
how sometimes easy / or hard it can be to start using the next version of the language.

It might be more beneficial to let them "try" the new product and learn slowly instead of
being thrown to the wolves a year or two down the road.

So to add to your points - "An old programmer, never wants the world to pass them by"

Sometimes its not feasible to start a whole re-write on the main app just because its there.
That costs a lot of time = a lot of money and probably a whole new set of headaches.
I've seen that happen, and that can kill a company too.

Cheers'

M.

 

[Andrew Faust]

How much new development are they actually doing on the site? It sounds to
me like they have a rather large web application already built and
functional. If they're mainly just doing small enhancements, they're
absolutely right not to scrap it all and start fresh. In general it's not
worth massively overhauling a functional system unless it's needed to
support some new business requirements.

One of the biggest problems I've seen developers run in to is scrapping
their entire code base to rebuild an app from scratch in the newest
technologies. Typically when they do that they lose a lot of functionality
that they had built over time, while at the same time adding a whole new
set of bugs.

I need to implemet new change control procedures, so that we have a
migration path from development to production. They will not be able to
logon
to web servers & make a quick fix.

You should absolutely do this. They should never be making changes to the
production system on the fly. They should also be using strict code
check-in policies.

However, that's not an argument for them needing to change. You can
implement strict testing procedures no matter what languages they use to
build their apps.

If you are asking them to do a massive rewrite you need to have a
convincing business case. The rewrite will be expensive so how will your
busines recoup that cost? Will you save on the cost of new hardware enough
to justify the cost of new development? Finally, you need to convince
whoever makes money decisions that it's worth it. A rewrite will likely be
expensive, so you need to be able to prove to them that it makes financial
sense.