Software life cycle - was IF ACTIVE

>Does anyone know of an equivalent CL command 
>to the S/36 OCL Statement:
>
>// IF ACTIVE-PROGNAME

Have you considered rewriting your apps to take advantage of the native 
environment?  I've been through too many conversions to keep quiet on this. 
 Converted code has the advantage of being up and running very quickly.  It 
also has the disadvantages of being fragile, hard to maintain and difficult 
to upgrade.  It also freezes old application design into "new" code.  Brand 
new code can take advantage of the native environment in a way that 
converted code never could, and you get to modernise your _application_ as 
well as the code that makes it up.

This is exactly how a 1975 application (batch entry, load a work file, 
sort, print, update) stays an integral part of a 1999 software package. 
This is exactly how a midrange programmer in 1999 has experience with MR 
but not embedded SQL, which the rest of the world has been using for a 
decade.  Old code should be allowed to die after some point - if it gets 
too bad, it gets replaced by a package because the rewrite cost is just too 
high.

I apologise to all for the rant, but would appreciate comments on how 
others perceive the software life cycle.  How many applications designed in 
1975 do *you* think should be running today?

Buck Calabro
CommSoft, Albany, NY
mailto:mcalabro@commsoft.net



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