Using UML to Analyze Legacy Code...

For every programmer out there creating brand new code and working on the latest technology, there are many of us who are cutting our way through the code maintenance jungle.
Maintaining code is not for everyone. Some programmers love creating brand new code and introducing new technologies. We need those programmers in order to move companies and coding technologies forward. At the same time all projects eventually require maintenance. That’s where we need programmers that will do the dirty work of maintaining code and if they love it it’s even better.
Maintenance can mean a lot of different things. Maintenance can sometimes mean fixing defects. Other times it can mean enhancements. Sometimes it can mean refactoring and paying off technical debt. Or as in my latest case modifying the code to meet new technical requirements. Maintenance is not totally exclusive from creating brand new code. Maintenance sometimes means moving from the old to the new.
The Problem
In my latest case we are faced with a challenge of replacing a Java Applet with HTML and JavaScript. The Applet in question was put in place many years long before I came on board in the project, probably when Applets were still and adequate approach for rich controls web applications. For the last year or so the applet has becoming quite a hassle to deal with. The applet itself requires no changes, it works as designed. However, applets are a high security vulnerability. One of the first things we had to do was have the applet signed (it was a really painful and non-straightforward process). It required a signature because it would stop running with each Java update. Moving forward, as of January of this year Oracle has announced its plans to remove the Java plug-in for browsers. Its decision is based mostly on the fact that browser vendors have announced their timeline for dropping support for plug ins.
.... Read the rest of the article at the link below
Using UML to Analyze Legacy Code

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Putting Files on the Rackspace File Cloud

Recently, I’ve been playing around with Asp.Net MVC and I (along with some friends) am creating an Asp.Net MVC application that can access files from our website. This means that files must display on the site as well as provide a way to download/upload them. I won’t give away all the details of the project but I will say this: Sharing photos is one of the driving forces for our project.  The files are only image type files( jpg, etc) The files must be uploaded by the users and stored somewhere within our system.  We don’t necessarily know at this time how much storage space we need but we think that we will need a little at first but possibly a lot more down the road. This means that the storage of these files must be scalable. The uploading of files must be controlled by our system.  Right off the bat we started our application and were uploading files to the web server with no problem.  We only did it this way to kind of prove our system model. We were just basically writing
Read more

Setting Up XnaMobileUnit to run unit tests in Windows Phone 7 XNA Games

Image
Introducing XnaMobileUnit I decided to roll my own unit test framework for Windows Phone 7 XNA games.   I have a couple of reasons why I decided to roll my own.  Among them was the fact that you cannot reference regular .Net assemblies from Windows Mobile Framework.  That means that referencing NUnit was out of the question.  Also using some of the other libraries that can be used for Silverlight Applications didn't quite feel right for me. The framework that I have created, XnaMobileUnit, is very simple to use and provides all the necessary functionality to run unit tests.  I am still working on the framework to provide a few more capabilities and features, but for the most part it is ready to use out of the box.  XnaMobileUnit is open source licensed under the Apache 2.0 License and can be downloaded from http://code.google.com/p/xna-mobile-unit/ .  I recommend downloading the latest source and compiling it then referencing the new DLL. Otherwise you can simply download the l
Read more

Reasons to Stay Away from CSLA

We've been using CSLA - Component-based Scalable Logical Architecture in a product for approximately one year and while it solves quite a few problems it violates some major good practices. No Clear Separation of Layers While at the time that we chose CSLA we knew very little about domain driven design, it is no excuse for the framework to possess the data access layer within the business object. This makes it extremely difficult to separate the concerns. As a result, it is difficult to mock the data-access layer creating many problems when attempting to perform unit tests. This also puts the additional responsibility of data access on the business object class, violating the Single Responsibility Principle( SRP ). Data access layer should be totally separated from the business object period. Having the data access within the within the BO class is not the only additional responsibility placed on the class but is the most significant one I can think of. No Context Validation
Read more