Shamil Salakhetdinov
shamil at smsconsulting.spb.ru
Fri Oct 16 15:40:12 CDT 2009
Hi Dan, OK, that sounds good - a good candidate application for automated conversion I mean :) 50KB of code isn't that much to clean-up after automated conversion but it's important to know what this code does? For example, once in the very beginning of my .NET development practice I have got converted advanced MS Excel VB6 COM add-in with about 10,000-15,000(?) code lines into VB.NET COM add-in - conversion of VB6 code into VB.NET is a built-in feature of Visual Studio but after that conversion I have spent about three days to make the converted code up & running, and I have got all that add-in functionality working OK. That add-in code didn't use database and if your code is like that - i.e. it is mainly utility/business layer functionality without that much db communication and without a lot of built-in SQL then clean-up of 50KB of code lines after automatic conversion could be done in max. 15 days. You can try to use the tools you mentioned with Northwind db - and I (and maybe somebody else also here) can have a look on the results of automatic conversion, and then we can tell more clearly how good this automatic conversion is. I'd note that the companies who sell such conversion tools do usually have rather limited evaluation versions - if such evaluation version will not be able to process NorthWind sample app (do they have it already processed as sa ample?) maybe you can contact them directly and ask to run the full version against Northwind and send you the converted result for evaluation. It's not an issue IMO for evaluation that converted app will have MS Access BE because the main part of work of your app conversion is currently expected to be forms/reports + code conversion... Thank you. -- Shamil -----Original Message----- From: dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Dan Waters Sent: Saturday, October 17, 2009 12:06 AM To: 'Discussion concerning Visual Basic and related programming issues.' Subject: Re: [dba-VB] Access FE --> VB: Conversion/Rewrite Time? Hi Shamil, The project I want to convert is actually mine, which I license to four long-term customers in my area (Minneapolis). Each customer's system has lots of additions so it does what they want it to do. To keep things running well, all trapped code errors are recorded and automatically sent to me the next morning. So after several years of working through these, I think my code is pretty well written. It's pretty standard, the queries don't use custom functions, forms and reports are bound to a table or a query, and I don't think I do anything tricky. There are about 50K lines of code that are involved. I don't expect to have a tool return anything more than a starting point. But if this becomes a 500 hour project, then any time savings is a good thing! Thanks! Dan -----Original Message----- From: dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Shamil Salakhetdinov Sent: Friday, October 16, 2009 12:57 PM To: 'Discussion concerning Visual Basic and related programming issues.' Subject: Re: [dba-VB] Access FE --> VB: Conversion/Rewrite Time? Hello Dan, In general I do not believe that automated conversion tools can do good job - I mean that after running automated conversion you'll get up & running application. I can be wrong. (I tried in the past some automated conversion tools - they weren't satisfactory). The quality of work of such tools IMO severely depends on the quality of the source code, and e.g. Gustav's code should get converted well, JC's code should also get converted well but his code specifics are that he uses a lot of "tricks" and "outdated" technologies features as DAO so automated conversion will not be of that much help here etc. I quoted here Gustav's code and JC's code because I have seen their code snippets here many times - unfortunately the main volume of VBA/VB6 code base AFAIHS is far from that quality... I have seen also "incredibly" badly designed forms/reports, which customers expected to get converted to .NET "overnight" - no way to do that I suppose... So if your code and forms/reports are of quality of Gustav and JC, and you do not use that much "tricky" programming as JC does, and you do not have a lot of inline SQL, and your forms and reports are mainly bound, and your SQL in queries is rather clean and doesn't use custom functions, and you do not use macros, and you do not use a lot of MS Access specific DoCmd... and RunCommand etc. - then I'd suppose you have good chances to get a converted app which will compile (after some(?) manual fixes) and which will even get some features working... Still just guessing here - if you have this MS Access -> .NET conversion project and there is no other options - just go for it - find good consultants/developers, purchase the tools you believe should do the work for you, make first trial conversion to get converted project compiled and maybe running some features - you can get quotes for that first phase - just select the most attractive ones. When that first phase finished you'll know more. You can also get some code converted during the first phase, which can be immediately used in production - that would be approval of the costs of the first conversion phase, then if first phase will succeed go for the second phase again setting clear customer business attractive goals etc. - do not try to eat this "behemoth" at once - it could happen you can succeed in that "big lunch eating" but you'll know that only when you'll make ... All in all IMO .NET (+ MS SQL backend) development is a way easier than that of VB6/VBA but learning curve is longer... Thank you. -- Shamil -----Original Message----- From: dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Dan Waters Sent: Friday, October 16, 2009 6:10 PM To: 'Discussion concerning Visual Basic and related programming issues.' Subject: Re: [dba-VB] Access FE --> VB: Conversion/Rewrite Time? Hi Shamil, This is exactly what I was hoping would be available! Great! I have a direct conversion project with 175 forms/reports. Most are simple but some are complex. I also have 89 standard modules/class modules. SQL Server 2005 will contain the BE. So, this is a lot of work. I did find 2 software utility tools which will do conversion of objects in Access to objects in VB.Net. 1) http://www.microtools.us/ this is $160. 2) http://members.shaw.ca/irie/vbobjconverter.htm this is $250. If either even works fairly well, that would be the way to go. These both have demo versions so if someone wants to try them out and report back that would be helpful. I don't know enough of VB.Net yet to make a good assessment. Thanks! Dan -----Original Message----- From: dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Shamil Salakhetdinov Sent: Friday, October 16, 2009 6:24 AM To: 'Discussion concerning Visual Basic and related programming issues.' Subject: Re: [dba-VB] Access FE --> VB: Conversion/Rewrite Time? Hello Dan, I'd count it as one form/report => 1 day => times 2.5 = that would include all project costs not only development. But if you do not plan to change any functionality then it can be done quicker - here is a real life conversion case's stats online: http://northwind.codeplex.com/Thread/View.aspx?ThreadId=54924 The estimations were between 45 and 165 hours - just for conversion development work - average estimation was exactly around the final figure: ~65 hours for 35 forms/reports (with subforms/sureports). Final result is not "industry strong" - it would need another 60 hours to make it "industry strong", even more time would be needed to write docs and online help if needed etc. - all in all it will be 1 day for 1 form/report for such a simple application... Of course it also depends on how experienced your developers are, what architecture your converted system is planned to have etc. Thank you. -- Shamil -----Original Message----- From: dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-vb-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Dan Waters Sent: Friday, October 16, 2009 2:56 AM To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'; 'Discussion concerning Visual Basic and related programming issues.' Subject: [dba-VB] Access FE --> VB: Conversion/Rewrite Time? I know some of you have done this! Do you have any general rules of thumb on how long the conversion or rewriting took you? Thanks! Dan _______________________________________________ dba-VB mailing list dba-VB at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-vb http://www.databaseadvisors.com __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4514 (20091016) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.esetnod32.ru _______________________________________________ dba-VB mailing list dba-VB at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-vb http://www.databaseadvisors.com _______________________________________________ dba-VB mailing list dba-VB at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-vb http://www.databaseadvisors.com __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4515 (20091016) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.esetnod32.ru _______________________________________________ dba-VB mailing list dba-VB at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-vb http://www.databaseadvisors.com _______________________________________________ dba-VB mailing list dba-VB at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-vb http://www.databaseadvisors.com __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4515 (20091016) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.esetnod32.ru