Mark Juras

The purpose of this article is to introduce the concept of a software migration project and compare two migration methodologies. Manual Rewrite Migration: Leverages hand coding to rebuild the legacy codebase from scratch. Optionally this approach may also leverage a low-yield translation tool to convert the legacy application to a new code base that still requires significant manual work to take it to the desired state. High-Yield-Tool-Assisted Migration: Balances customization of translation tools with manual work to convert the legacy application to a new code base. Why Migrate? CHANGE HAPPENS The details of every software system are defined in terms of two foundation technologies: The programming languages used to describe the system The various runtime libraries used to access external services The programming language dictates how developers can describe data st... (more)

Five Pillars of Visual Basic Retirement

Introduction In the past, Visual Basic (VB) upgrades were fairly painless and inexpensive because Microsoft made new versions of VB backward compatible, but things are different this time. An upgrade to .NET brings with it a radical shift in terms of architecture, design, deployment, features, and tools. The upgrade will be even more challenging if you decide to move from the forgiving VB compiler to the rigorous C# compiler. Confronted with declining vendor and community support and major migration challenges, BMW Financial Services in Dublin, Ohio, set out to define a strategy ... (more)