Answered Warp Speed

[RealHeavyDude]

I can not believe that I even dare to ask.

But, in all seriousness, the next round of a possible migration game ( off of Progress of course ) has become part of my life. Our senior management does believe that there is a tool - called warp speed - that supports seamless migrations from Progress to any given technology - most prominently Java.

Now, I know that this won't work seamlessly, not one bit. From experience so far I've seen there is no migration - the only way that makes sense is to start over. I've witnessed serveral of those projects fail miserably.

Nevertheless, I tried to find something about that "warp speed", but the only thing Google comes up with are Star Trek related references.

May I dare to aks whether anybody has ever heard of this and possibly give me a hint where I could find more information?

Thanks in Advance, RealHeavyDude.

 

[Cringer]

Never heard of it and it sounds a recipe for disaster as you also surmise.

 

[Cringer]

Warpspeed Ventures GmbH ??

 

[TomBascom]

A "proof of concept", using code and a database that I provide and tested by our own team, would be the first thing I would want to see.

That should be good for a few chuckles.

 

[TheMadDBA]

Having worked for a CIO who was quite keen to convert our main application to Oracle or SQL Server (gasp) I have a little experience with most of the commercial conversion tools out there.

As expected... once you get past very simple code the tools start to break down and require manual coding, which the vendors will be more than happy to provide for several years. What does get generated is a hot mess for the target language and database. What might be considered proper design for Progress is not proper for SQL databases and the same thing goes for the code obviously.

As Tom suggested, make them do a proof of concept for some of your more complex code and watch the excuses fly. Costs and time estimates will quickly rise to the level of a rewrite or higher.

IF they really want to convert then the DataServer products are a good first step.. but those also require coding changes, complete application testing and new skills all around. Other legitimate options are to rewrite certain sections of the application, carving it out over time.

 

[joey.jeremiah]

besides this silver bullet solution maybe they're looking to modernize the application and moving to a non progress ui solution would be a good idea which would make half or more of the application non progress. we've moved our entire ui to a 100% javascript framework and we're very happy with it but it was a big project.

 

[TheMadDBA]

I think they might be talking about this company Warp Speed Labs: Home Page

I don't have any direct experience with them but their claims of the tools handling any language seem a little suspect. It also looks like they actually touch and rewrite the code manually instead of a magical conversion process.

 

[tamhas]

UIs come and go. The meat of the value of the application is in the business logic and data structure. I have followed a number of ABL=>Java conversions, only one of which has completed in a way that I would call happy. Massively over budget and time is typical. Incomplete is typical. Really ugly code that requires massive refactoring to be anything one would want to live with is typical. Even the happiest one is happy because the vendor set expectations very low up front ... and that company doesn't offer the service any more.

 

[RealHeavyDude]

Thanks your responses. All what I hear from you just seconds the experiences: None of the projects I witnessed did even aim to generate any business value - just a different technology stack doing the same. All of them failed miserably and were stopped after lots of money has been wasted on external contractors.

Thanks, RealHeavyDude.