RE: Fix or rewrite?

If you can't justify it, don't to a total rewrite. Instead, as each new fix comes along, spend some time bringing it up to modern specs. Get it structured so the code is not a mess to read, get long runs of inline code into subroutines. If there is anything that can be reused by other applications split it out into a called procedure. Over time it will no longer be a mess to deal with.

Folks:

Hypothetical question (yes, really hypothetical): At what point do you
decide to re-write a program rather than fix it? And, if the decision
is to re-write it, how do you justify the decision to TPTB?

Consider the following ... you have a program that's about 15 years old.
Written in RPG III, converted to ILE using CVTRPGSRC but never updated
to take advantage of ILE capabilities, and it's a total mess (by fairly
modern standards). Continued modification to the program just seems to
make it worse. The program is not small ... and fairly key to the
system you are working on.

How can you justify a re-write? How can you quantify the cost / benefit
ratio to show that a re-write would be in the best interests of
continued development?

david

p.s. and, just in case someone from my employer is reading this message,
this is truly a hypothetical situation ... although we do have some
pretty old code.

--
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Booth Martin
http://www.Martinvt.com
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