GIGO (garbage in, garbage out)

"A fundamental goal of legacy Information System migration is that the new system not become a legacy system itself"

These insightful words were written seventeen years ago by Michael L. Brodie and Michael Stonebraker in their 1993 study called "DARWIN: On the Incremental Migration of Legacy Information Systems".

From this goal statement, which I believe is self-evident and universal, it is clear that merely operationally and mechanically pushing a legacy client/server (PowerBuilder or any other language based) system through an automated .NET migration process will not automatically result in a non-legacy system.

Even though the goal of all previous intra-Classic migrations was modernization, such modernization was limited to taking advantage of new language features and enhanced O/S support within existing code.  After all Client/Server architecture and the DataWindow have been around since version 1.0, MDI since version 3.0 and the NVO since version 5.0.  So, if your goal in version 12 migration is limited modernization and just remaining current then your best strategy is to simply migrate to version 12 Classic.  However if your goal is preparing your application for the next generation and a long term future, the .NET migration opportunity offers so much more.  It offers the opportunity for you to transform your code assets into a form that will allow them to remain relevant in whatever platform and direction the industry goes in the immediate and distant future.

In my next series of blogs I'll be looking at how organizations apply the dreaded term "legacy" to their information systems; helping you figure out if you system is PowerBuilder legacy or not and providing guidelines on how to keep your PowerBuilder application relevant for the long haul within the broader Microsoft .NET ecosystem.