Language change question

[Bryan]

Hi,

I work for a company that is heading towards an FDA approved development
process. We have always used C++ in a windows environment, and we have
more than 6 years of code, applications and libraries developed.

Our IT director has made the decision that to speed up development times
we need to re-architect all of our existing code, and has hired a 3rd
party (offshore) company to do this for us. They have recommended that
we change from C++ to java, spring and hibernate.

We are all professional programmers here, so learning java is not a
problem for those of us who dont know it. But the time to learn the
tools and environments may take a bit of time. But the real question is
what do we gain from moving to java? Or conversely what do we lose by
moving away from C++?

I would be interested to hear any thoughts, stories of similar
experiences or pros and cons.

Thanks!

[Phil Cairns]

Bryan wrote:

Hi,

I work for a company that is heading towards an FDA approved development
process. We have always used C++ in a windows environment, and we have
more than 6 years of code, applications and libraries developed.

Our IT director has made the decision that to speed up development times
we need to re-architect all of our existing code, and has hired a 3rd
party (offshore) company to do this for us. They have recommended that
we change from C++ to java, spring and hibernate. [snip] I would be interested to hear any thoughts, stories of similar
experiences or pros and cons.

I went the other way. I started off developing a client in C#/.NET, and
my server in Java. It was a reasonably high-volume system that had to
process pretty much the entire Australian Stock Exchange activity for
stocks and options. Performance was woeful, and I ended up redeveloping
both the client and the server programs in C++. It was a great. On the
server, the CPU was pretty much idling all day, and it was only a DL380
that had to process everything twice (once for live data, once for 20
minuted delayed). The client? Ha. The client no longer grabbed up to
70mb of RAM simply because the user moved the mouse around the screen.

A friend of mine consults for another company that did a huge
redevelopment in WebSphere and Java. Again, woeful. They figured out
that they need something like five times the processing power to get the
same performance out a Java implementation as a native one. Oh, and
then, part way through the project, Sun went and end-of-life'd all of
their hardware.

Phil.

[Dave]

Bryan wrote:

Hi,

I work for a company that is heading towards an FDA approved development
process. We have always used C++ in a windows environment, and we have
more than 6 years of code, applications and libraries developed.

Our IT director has made the decision that to speed up development times
we need to re-architect all of our existing code, and has hired a 3rd
party (offshore) company to do this for us. They have recommended that
we change from C++ to java, spring and hibernate.

We are all professional programmers here, so learning java is not a
problem for those of us who dont know it. But the time to learn the
tools and environments may take a bit of time. But the real question is
what do we gain from moving to java? Or conversely what do we lose by
moving away from C++?

I would be interested to hear any thoughts, stories of similar
experiences or pros and cons.

Thanks!

Why on earth is a _director_ making a decision like that? Approving the
decision, yes, because only a director has the authority to approve a
plan that will set the business back to the stone age.

OK, maybe this is America, where it seems everyone above the tea lady's
biscuit fetcher's assistant's gopher's assistant is some kind of
director, vice president or some other grand sounding title; here in the
UK a director is at or slightly below board level, and to be below board
level there has to be several layers of management: plebs, team leaders,
lower management, middle management, senior management - this last
category or higher is where you'd expect to find someone with "director"
in their job title. Directors (even the IT director, who is on the
board to represent the IT dept) make business decisions, not technical
decisions, and the decision to make a language switch is most definitely
a technical one that should be firmly outside the remit of a director.

So I agree with those who suggest you polish up your CV. This business
is going to go seriously down the pan; at the end of it there's going to
be a seriously retarded product that nobody will want (I've been in a
company that decided to port its main product from VMS/Pascal to C/Unix
and the finished product was years behind the main one that was still
being developed. It wasn't helped though by the use of a Pascal to C
convertor that knew nothing of Pascal, C, VMS or Unix and output C that
resembled the original Pascal at best in the same way a pavement pizza
resembles yesterday's evening meal - bits of it were recognisable
although horribly munged, and there were diced carrots all over the
place with no sign of carrot in the original). It'd be nice if you
shared the company name so that those with stock can do something useful
with the cash instead of watching it plummet in value.

[tragomaskhalos]

Bryan wrote:

I work for a company that is heading towards an FDA approved development
process. We have always used C++ in a windows environment, and we have
more than 6 years of code, applications and libraries developed.

Our IT director has made the decision that to speed up development times
we need to re-architect all of our existing code, and has hired a 3rd
party (offshore) company to do this for us. They have recommended that
we change from C++ to java, spring and hibernate.

In addition to the wise words already posted, I would suggest that a
move to .NET would make far more sense, because that way you can retain
your existing C++ code base (either keep it as native code and write
some wrappers, or recompile it for the .NET CLR) and use eg C# for new
development. I don't know what the FDA situation would be with this but
it's got to make more sense that trying to convert 6 years' worth of
work into a completely different language (which is what Java is,
despite apparent syntactic similarities).

[Mateusz Loskot]

Bryan wrote:

We are all professional programmers here, so learning java is not a
problem for those of us who dont know it. But the time to learn the
tools and environments may take a bit of time. But the real question is
what do we gain from moving to java? Or conversely what do we lose by
moving away from C++?

Hmm, how would you estimate time necessary to accustom
Java in your company?

I've read about time necessary to enter new programming language may
estimate in >=6 months. The cost may be very hight.

I think you should try to organize your current development path in
a better way first.

Cheers
--
Mateusz �oskot
http://mateusz.loskot.net

[Puppet_Sock]

Phlip wrote:

[followups set to C++ newsgroup]

Bryan wrote:

I work for a company that is heading towards an FDA approved development
process. We have always used C++ in a windows environment, and we have
more than 6 years of code, applications and libraries developed.

Our IT director has made the decision that to speed up development times
we need to re-architect all of our existing code, and has hired a 3rd
party (offshore) company to do this for us. They have recommended that
we change from C++ to java, spring and hibernate.
Polish your resume.

This is never bad advice in coding. Sometimes the grass really is
greener on the other side of the fence. Plus, it does not hurt to have
your accomplishments all listed and neatly typed when it comes
time for year-end-review.
Someone has sold FDA compliance to your director, and with it comes the kind
of disruptions and "reorganization " that will increase your bug rate.
Probably.

On the other hand, I know a guy who works on a database
that the US military uses to control their blood supply. They must
have FDA approval. This is not a trivial thing, and a company that
can do it is able to pluck contracts. Of course, it's only certain
*kinds* of contracts. So it is not *necessarily* a win even if it
is the situation.

FDA compliance is a royal pain in the ass, and not worth it unless
you are producing a product that requires it. But, like many things,
it's not important until "you don't got it" and need it.
Your director could have sped up development time by ordering all
programmers to write unit tests as they write the tested code. These
systems have been shown to reliably speed up production, leveraging
existing code bases.
Agreed. Whole heartedly.
However, your IT director fell for the oldest trick in the book - promising
that Java development is faster than C++ "because you can't have dumb
memory errors". Ever since Java came out, we have seen companies follow
this exact path to ruin: "Rewrite it all in Java, and development will be
rapid and bug-free!"

Then the monkeys start flying out your butt.

Agreed. Expecting that changing to another language will make large
desirable differences to code quality, productivity, etc., is wishfull
thinking in the extreme. There are many things to be done that can
improve productivity and code quality with far more reliability.
You already mentioned unit tests being written along with the code.
There are plenty others, and getting a few good texts on improving
these things would go a long way. Just as one example, there is
_Code Complete_. But don't stop at one book.

As well, "rewrite it all in Java" is not so simple as it might sound.
Java has different idioms, different ways of doing things, different
traps and pitfalls. It would be necessary to go quite far back in
the design process to get the full *possible* benefit of switching
languages. Switching now could easily be far more work than
it is worth.
Socks

[Noah Roberts]

Bryan wrote:

Hi,

They have recommended that
we change from C++ to java, spring and hibernate.

You know, the big java vs. C++ argument that recently occured seemed to
indicate that the primary benifit of Java was that it kept you from
doing stupid things...

[scott moore]

Bryan wrote:

Hi,

I work for a company that is heading towards an FDA approved development
process. We have always used C++ in a windows environment, and we have
more than 6 years of code, applications and libraries developed.

Our IT director has made the decision that to speed up development times
we need to re-architect all of our existing code, and has hired a 3rd
party (offshore) company to do this for us. They have recommended that
we change from C++ to java, spring and hibernate.

We are all professional programmers here, so learning java is not a
problem for those of us who dont know it. But the time to learn the
tools and environments may take a bit of time. But the real question is
what do we gain from moving to java? Or conversely what do we lose by
moving away from C++?

I would be interested to hear any thoughts, stories of similar
experiences or pros and cons.

Thanks!

If the 3rd party offshore, which is of course in India, is going to do
the work, then there would seem to be nothing to do except update
your resume. The next step would be to trim local staff down.

Of course, what is more likely is that, despite what you have written,
the 3rd party is not going to do the work, but has analyzed your code
and come up with this solution, and won't be around or responsible for
the result.

The likely result is that none of this will occur. Management will tire
of the project, and layoffs will result on declining sales.

Why any of this matters to you is the question. If you own stock, sell
it. If you know Java, you can lead the project. If you don't know Java,
the company is about to pay you to learn it.

Some of the best jobs I ever had were companies that were failing. The
pay is good until the end, and having your old company empty with a
for sale sign on the door looks great on your resume. Nobody faults
you for either quiting or being fired.

[William]

"Bryan" <sp**@nospam.co m> wrote in message
news:9%******** ***********@new ssvr12.news.pro digy.com...

Hi,

I work for a company that is heading towards an FDA approved
development process. We have always used C++ in a windows
environment, and we have more than 6 years of code,
applications and libraries developed.

Our IT director has made the decision that to speed up
development times we need to re-architect all of our
existing code, and has hired a 3rd party (offshore) company
to do this for us. They have recommended that we change
from C++ to java, spring and hibernate.

Let's see. To speed up development, this director is going
shove the stick into reverse...

Sounds to me like you need an IT director with better run-time
error checking.

You know this 3rd party company probably suggested Java because
it's what they know, right? I bet they can scare up three Java
programmers for every C++ programmer in their region, and at
about the same price. Basically, they've recommended you improve
their profit margins by switching to Java.

-Wm

[Christopher Benson-Manica]

In comp.lang.c++ William <Re***@newsgrou p.please> wrote:

comp.lang.java removed from xpost, since it is defunct.

I can't see the original post, piggybacking:

Our IT director has made the decision that to speed up
development times we need to re-architect all of our
existing code, and has hired a 3rd party (offshore) company
to do this for us. They have recommended that we change
from C++ to java, spring and hibernate.

There are tradeoffs between C++ and Java, and it's not improbable that
some of the C++ you have could be improved by being rewritten
(possibly in Java).
You know this 3rd party company probably suggested Java because
it's what they know, right? I bet they can scare up three Java
programmers for every C++ programmer in their region, and at
about the same price. Basically, they've recommended you improve
their profit margins by switching to Java.

Well, if it were an American company, the probability that the question
was seriously considered rather than a product of Dogbert Consulting
would be substantially higher. Not to mention that IT directors have
a non-zero probability of being abject idiots.

--
Christopher Benson-Manica | I *should* know what I'm talking about - if I
ataru(at)cybers pace.org | don't, I need to know. Flames welcome.

[casioculture]

Bryan wrote:

Hi,

I work for a company that is heading towards an FDA approved development
process. We have always used C++ in a windows environment, and we have
more than 6 years of code, applications and libraries developed.

Our IT director has made the decision that to speed up development times
we need to re-architect all of our existing code, and has hired a 3rd
party (offshore) company to do this for us. They have recommended that
we change from C++ to java, spring and hibernate.

We are all professional programmers here, so learning java is not a
problem for those of us who dont know it. But the time to learn the
tools and environments may take a bit of time. But the real question is
what do we gain from moving to java? Or conversely what do we lose by
moving away from C++?

I would be interested to hear any thoughts, stories of similar
experiences or pros and cons.

Thanks! From my experience, and I have seen this happen time and again, it may

have nothing to do with the technical issues. That you're even
wondering about this may show how naiive and good-hearted
Americans/Europeans are, and I love them for that. What could be
happening is that someone could be trying to take over your job and
then pass it on to someone else, either for altruistic (altruistic to
that someone else, at your expense - in other words, nationalistic), or
for some economic kickback. I have seen it done time and again across
industries. One of them would get a a foothold of influence somewhere
and then try to help his ilk.