Re: My Migrations



"Lee Unterreiner" <lee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:LIadnU0MEIKYQ3zVnZ2dnUVZ_ovinZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Fellow Dinosuars:

It's been a while.

I've been coding in C# for the last six years and I must admit I have
swallowed all of the OO Kool-Aid.

Note: (When I say 'I', I really mean 'We'. My friend and co-developer is
Rick Hardman. When I use 'we' I'm referring to y'all).

I used to say all my dreams were in COBOL. Now I have a new dream that
some in this group may share.

In this dream I work for a company called "MyMigrations". Their mission
is to move EVERYONE to .Net. Their product is called "MyMigrator". It
is to migrations like MySql is to databases.

MyMigrator sucks in a client's entire software inventory: code, data,
schemas, procs, screens, jcl, etc., etc..
It reads from any IBM, any UNIX, any HP, any Windows, but only one target
platform: .Net.
Development and deployment platform based on SOA and Smart Client
architectures using WCF and Framework 3.5
All data converted to SQL Server. All screens or Accept/Display converted
to Winforms
All source languages (all dialects) are translated to C#. The generated
code is indistinguishable from the code you or I would write.

MyMigrator is completely free and open-source. And yet despite that last
sentence "MyMigrations" makes sufficient money to pay my salary and those
of my fellow "migration experts". We get paid vast sums for our vast
knowledge of MyMigrator and the principles on which it is built (or in
Peter Dashwood's case, simply because he looks good in a tuxedo).

That picture was taken 10 years ago, Lee. (In Los Angeles, oddly enough...)

I'm amazed anybody even remembers it, but thank you for your kind words. :-)

I have wondered what you were up to for some time, and I share your
MyMigrations aspiration. However, I came to the conclusion that I was a
Voice crying in the Wilderness as far as .NET, C#, OO and components were
concerned, so rather than look at Open Source, I started building tools
myself and showing them to people. We started with a "flat files to RDB"
strategy but as COBOL has declined, more and more people are looking to
salvage their legacy code. If you have seen the diagram on the web site you
will get the general idea of the strategy being employed. My approach is not
quite as grand as the one you have outlined but it is practical and seems to
work.

I'll be happy to contribute to what you're doing, and we can talk privately
about approaches.


Really good to see you are still around and spooky that you have
independently taken more or less the same approach I have; move to .NET. Get
of f COBOL. Leverage the legacy.

And then I wake up.

There is no MyMigrations yet and MyMigrator is a work in progress.

There are many, many components to MyMigrator. To become ubiquitous, it
must be both wide and deep.

But a journey of 1000 miles begins with the first step. There is nothing
wrong with high aspirations and everything has to be imagined before it can
become a reality.

I'll be in touch and if I can help, I will.

Pete.
--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."


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