Timeline for How should a non-IT manager secure the long-term maintenance and development of essential legacy software?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 25, 2013 at 18:28 | comment | added | MarkJ | Between you and your current consultants you can probably figure out a plan. You have asked them? And don't worry too much about the hyperbole in some of the comments & answers here. | |
| Oct 25, 2013 at 17:17 | answer | added | Bill Leeper | timeline score: 2 | |
| Oct 25, 2013 at 14:39 | comment | added | Radu Murzea | It was irresponsible and very risky to let yourself come to this situation. Your system is written in prehistoric languages (think about cars in 1850 and you'll know what I mean). It's very hard to find companies or independent contractors that know these languages. Your entire business rests on a single point of failure... which is about to fail. Act fast or this whole thing will blow in your face. | |
| Oct 25, 2013 at 12:45 | history | edited | Dan Pichelman | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Rephrased to remove off topic resource request
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| Oct 25, 2013 at 11:59 | comment | added | Ramhound | @user105977 - My best advice would be to document the current system ( if its not already documented ) so that your consultants feel confortable, if they were hit by a bus or retire, somebody could come in after them and manage the project. Once you have documentation of the project ( specifications, project requirements, ect ) you are not in such a bad position. I sort of disagree with most of the comments about these languages, there is still demand for them, and knowlege of these languages is worth a great deal of money. A young developer should be able to learn these languages quickly. | |
| Oct 25, 2013 at 10:57 | answer | added | High Performance Mark | timeline score: -2 | |
| Oct 25, 2013 at 10:53 | answer | added | Marjan Venema | timeline score: 11 | |
| Oct 25, 2013 at 9:01 | comment | added | Maru | Also, young programmers would probably not be so interested in working with such ancient languages since demand for them is low as compared to modern programming languages. | |
| Oct 25, 2013 at 8:59 | comment | added | Maru | I'm going to agree with @BЈовић on this one. You should consider modernizing your software rather than trying to find life support for something as ancient as BASIC and COBOL, for the sake of future proofing at least. For now you might find some oldies or hipster kids who can code for you, but as years pass by and paradigms change, these talents will become endangered species which will in turn cause the slow and steady demise of your system. The mere fact that you can barely find programmers now should be a red flag that its about time for a change. | |
| Oct 25, 2013 at 7:13 | review | Close votes | |||
| Oct 26, 2013 at 8:38 | |||||
| Oct 25, 2013 at 6:38 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackProgrammer/status/393627520136138752 | ||
| Oct 25, 2013 at 6:34 | comment | added | NimChimpsky | There are lots of contractors and consultancies that migrate software form legacy systems. However cobol and basic are not legacy they are prehistoric. Although weirdly its probably quite easy to hire someone, as they are probably cool in a hipster hacker way. | |
| Oct 25, 2013 at 6:14 | comment | added | BЈовић | Just to add : productive, rewarding career, in part in an old, non-sexy language like BASIC. -- BASIC and productive, rewarding career do not go along in one sentence | |
| Oct 25, 2013 at 6:12 | comment | added | BЈовић | ouch! BASIC and COBOL?!? I would try a retirement home. Have you thought of "modernizing" your software? | |
| Oct 25, 2013 at 5:47 | review | First posts | |||
| Oct 25, 2013 at 6:27 | |||||
| Oct 25, 2013 at 5:31 | history | asked | user105977 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |