RE: AS/400 Gasping For Air ?? -- MIDRANGE-L

Hello Bruce,

Hah!  If they are planning to replace your existing application from scratch 
then the proverbial snowball 
springs to mind.  To attempt this in a year will take 375 developers -- the 
communication and management 
nightmare will kill them.

What can they do to improve success?  Write (or buy) a tool to convert RPG to 
C++.  It won't be OO but then 
most C++ is not anyway.  Buy libraries or existing base application and modify 
to fit.  A code converter or 
existing application is the only way they can do this in the time.

Now for the figures (and boy, will this fire a few of the list members up).

You have 750,000 lines of code (LOC) to convert:  So at 2000 LOC per man-year 
we get 375 man-years.  Now 
before some of you say "I can write more than 2000 LOC in a year" think on this:

2000 LOC is IBM's guideline for project estimation - last I knew.  It includes 
design, code, testing, 
documentation, and translation.  The design, code, and test stages all have 
separate review stages.  The 
translation is a big part and you probably don't need to do that so let's boost 
the LOC to 4000 -- we still 
have 187.5 man-years.  Maybe you can skip some of the reviews and do less tests 
so let's boost the LOC to 
8000 -- we're down to 93.75 man-years and that is still far too many people on 
a project.  So we split the 
project up in to smaller projects with about 6-7 people per team and we have 15 
or 16 teams each with a team 
leader.  Coordinating that requires additional management levels so we slap in 
2 team managers each with 8 
team leaders reporting to them, and someone to manage the team managers (a 
project manager if you will).  Are 
you beginning to see the problem?

We haven't even considered any of the unforseen issues:  Things that don't work 
that way on Unix/NT and need 
a major redesign, people leaving and new bodies getting up to speed, etc, etc, 
etc (Anybody ever see Yul 
Brynner in The King and I?)

One of the major reasons projects run over time is that estimated LOC just 
includes the time to write the 
CODE.  Testing? Well MY stuff always compiles first time, why would I need to 
test it?

Regards,
Simon Coulter.

//----------------------------------------------------------
// FlyByNight Software         AS/400 Technical Specialists
// Phone: +61 3 9419 0175      Mobile: +61 0411 091 400
// Fax:   +61 3 9419 0175      E-mail: shc@flybynight.com.au
// 
// Windoze should not be open at Warp speed.
//--- forwarded letter -------------------------------------------------------
> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0
> Date: Tue, 05 Jan 99 13:28:21 -0800
> From: "Bruce Shaw" <crashshw@ix.netcom.com>
> To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> Reply-To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> Subject: RE: AS/400 Gasping For Air ??
> Importance: Normal

> 
> Somewhat relevant to this thread; I have CISC AS400 310-2044; application is
> CS order system with basic billing\invoicing\client info backended into a JD
> Edwards environment. There is also substantial data sharing going on between
> two major apps which control the client memberships. Currently, there is 40+
> GB data and some 3/4 million lines RPG code.
> We have just be acquired by a small developer outfit whose specialty is in
> UNIX/NT environments. Their intention is to replace all AS400 apps/hardware
> within 6-9 months with C++ developed apps rather than upgrading our CISC box
> (which is somewhat CPU deprived ). There will be telephony apps/hardware
> integrated into the environment (stuff we don't have currently but would
> like to have). Is the 6-9 months time frame realistic for replacing our
> current RPG stuff?
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com
> > [mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Pete Hall
> > Sent: Monday, January 04, 1999 7:40 PM
> > To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
> > Subject: Re: AS/400 Gasping For Air ??
> >
> >
> > At 21:02 01/03/1999 -0600, Nina Jones wrote:
> > >but i wonder - they do billing, accounts receiviable, membership
> > tracking,
> > >and training programs.  how on earth can anyone rewrite all that
> > for $2000?
> > >are those wizards that good?
> >
> > They're not magic. My experience with Access has been that it
> > doesn't scale
> > very well. It is, however, very compatible with SQL Server. I'll bet this
> > company is in for some stressful times.
> > Pete Hall
> > peteh@inwave.com
> > http://www.inwave.com/~peteh
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