[NTLUG:Discuss] Need some inputs on porting.

[Stephen Davidson]

Hi Harshal.

Ok, I will buy the "Its already written and debugged, and we don't want
to rewrite it" reason.  For the client, the important thing is, if it
is already working, don't redo it!

As for the rest of your comments, seems a little more education is in
order;

Java 1.0 GUI: Something called AWT - a good first effort,  but leaves
a lot to be desired.  I won't argue with your "Pathetic" statement,
other than to comment that it can be readily enhanced.
Java 1.2 GUI: Something called Swing - A reasonably slick GUI, and I
have not looked back since.
Java 1.4: IBM introduces SWT, a set of GUI components that rock, and
then open sources them (see Eclipse of a current implementation).
Everyone that tries them is immediately converted, with the exception
of a few purist holdouts.  Sun is included in the conversion.

In regards to AppServers, some of them are quite expensive, yes.
Weblogic is one that comes to mind.
Some of the best ones are open source (JBoss anyone?).
If you are developing a major project from scratch, especially a web
based one (or multi-client: eg. Web, Gui Console, Web Services, Command
Line Interface, etc. - Keel anyone?), than it makes sense to look at
J2EE.  Same applies if you have an already existing application
(including one written in C, Perl, PHP, Cobol, whatever) and you want to
"WebEnable" or make it accessable via Web Browsers.  People forget
that Java can talk to other languages today (and has been able to do so
for some time now). I have been doing this for the last year!

Whats the big deal with Java?
After it was invented, people started inventing and porting other
technologies.  Not products, technologies, with many products written
using one or more Java technologies.  Last time I looked, over 250
technologies, with sample implementations,  have been defined.  And
most of them were defined by parties other than Sun to solve issues
they were (and in many cases, are) working on.

Bottom line?  Java has advanced tremendously over the last decade,
and is now a serious language with serious technologies built on it.
Is it worth replacing already working legacy apps with it?  Not as
long as they are doing their job, or can be made to do so with
minimal effort (such as Harshal's current project).
Should it be used to enhance already existing applications?  Maybe,
depends on the application and the enhancement.
Should one use when starting a new application from scratch (or
rewriting a Visual Basic application for a new platform)?  Probably.
One should at least have a serious look at it, anyways.  And most
likely at some of the technologies built on it as well.  Why
reinvent the wheel?

For a list of officially defined Java based technologies,
http://www.jcp.org.


Regards,
Steve

Vaidya, Harshal (Cognizant) wrote:
> Hi Stephen,
> 
>    The company has already invested heavily in the current application.
> They've bought Solaris boxes, all the third party tools and have also
> paid some company for the development and testing efforts. From last 4
> years this application is serving them good. In fact most of the users
> in the bank are now completely used to it. To move the application to
> JAVA now, would involve a lot of cost. Moreover, the UI provided by JAVA
> is pathetically slow. It just can't match the UI provided by C++ based
> applications (I am talking about TrollTech, RogueWave etc). Since JAVA
> UI is pathetic, one possible solution would be move it over the Web
> rather than being a standalone App. This again brings in costs of
> development of JSP/Servlets/EJB's, buying of Appication server licences.
> Since the application to be ported is huge it surely dosent make sence
> moving it to JAVA from a financial perspective. Porting would be a much
> better and economical solution.
> 
> Thanks,
> Harshal.
> 

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