Future reuse of code

[James Cameron]

Hi I'm developing a program and the client is worried about future
reuse of the code. Say 5, 10, 15 years down the road. This will be a
major factor in selecting the development language. Any comments on
past experience, research articles, comments on the matter would be
much appreciated. I suspect something like C would be the best based
on comments I received from the VB news group.

Thanks for the help in advance

James Cameron

[jce]

"Dario" <da***@despamme d.com> wrote in message
news:bg******** **@fata.cs.inte rbusiness.it...

NOTHING will run 10 years from now!

I have a lot of C programs that run perfectly
after more than 10 years!

<code snipped>
I like the previous post that said to use english :-) I don't think I can
follow this very easily.
JCE

[jce]

"Andy Fish" <aj****@blueyon der.co.uk> wrote in message
news:nD******** ***********@new s-binary.blueyond er.co.uk...

I would have to put my vote for java, simply because it's less
hardware-dependent than the others.

It's quite possible that JVM's in 10-15 years will be able to execute java
code you build now (in the same way that office XP can still open up a word 2 document). If the source got lost you could even have a reasonable go at
decompiling it, which I would definitely not fancy with any of the binary
formats.

Andy

Not likely.

http://java.sun.com/products/jdk/1.2...atibilities1.2

If you link to 1.1 you get:

Products listed on this page have completed the Sun End of Life process.

None of the items listed though would send a development area into apoplexy
:-)

JCE

[Howard Brazee]

On 4-Aug-2003, "Harley" <de************ *****@worldnet. att.net> wrote:

| NOTHING will run 10 years from now!

You might want to qualify this by language.
(NOTHING written in ? will run 10 years from now!)
Be careful, there are people out there with 10 year old software that is
still running.

Correct - most of the software I work with is older than that.

But if we are talking about "reuseable" , I wonder what we should be looking for.
Do we worry about plugging in the algorithm used to determine depreciation so
we don't have to analyze it again?

Coding it is simple in any language, so I am guessing we are talking about
keeping analysis and testing down. Except we will still need to analyze to
make sure conditions are still correct.

And we test as much as we can afford. In stand alone programs, we can afford
to test everything. If we code a widely used object, we had better make sure
the design is such that we can live with less testing.

Designing for reusability is designing for what we think is a characteristic of
good coding. Which is not a primary goal at all.

[Dario]

Julián Albo wrote:

(void)printf("D ama (c) 1987 - Dario Dariol\n");

1989 or 1987?

In 1987 I written the program.
My last correction to the same program was made
at September 8, 1989 17:56 (Italian local time).

- Dario

[Harley]

"Howard Brazee" <ho****@brazee. net> wrote in message
news:bg******** **@peabody.colo rado.edu...
|
| On 4-Aug-2003, "Harley" <de************ *****@worldnet. att.net> wrote:
|
| > | NOTHING will run 10 years from now!
| >
| > You might want to qualify this by language.
| > (NOTHING written in ? will run 10 years from now!)
| > Be careful, there are people out there with 10 year old software that is
| > still running.
|
| Correct - most of the software I work with is older than that.
|
| But if we are talking about "reuseable" , I wonder what we should be
looking for.

My GUESS is inheritance, and polymorphism.

| Do we worry about plugging in the algorithm used to determine
depreciation so
| we don't have to analyze it again?
|
| Coding it is simple in any language, so I am guessing we are talking about
| keeping analysis and testing down. Except we will still need to analyze
to
| make sure conditions are still correct.
|
| And we test as much as we can afford. In stand alone programs, we can
afford
| to test everything. If we code a widely used object, we had better make
sure
| the design is such that we can live with less testing.

A business rule should be able to be tested outside the system
One of the suggestions in extreme programming is that you have a test driver
BEFORE you start coding.
System integration testing is still a requirement, but the test driver
should have uncovered any problems not associated with integration issues.
You still have an Oops issue, but the Opps should be associated with the
integration, not the functionality of the object.

| Designing for reusability is designing for what we think is a
characteristic of
| good coding. Which is not a primary goal at all.

I think this is a personal preference, like a style issue.

[Marco van de Voort]

In article <45************ **************@ posting.google. com>, James Cameron wrote:

Hi I'm developing a program and the client is worried about future
reuse of the code. Say 5, 10, 15 years down the road. This will be a
major factor in selecting the development language. Any comments on
past experience, research articles, comments on the matter would be
much appreciated. I suspect something like C would be the best based
on comments I received from the VB news group.

Mathlab? The only one I can think of being around over 15 years :-)

[pete kirkham]

Marco van de Voort wrote:

In article <45************ **************@ posting.google. com>, James Cameron wrote:

Hi I'm developing a program and the client is worried about future
reuse of the code. Say 5, 10, 15 years down the road. This will be a
major factor in selecting the development language. Any comments on
past experience, research articles, comments on the matter would be
much appreciated. I suspect something like C would be the best based
on comments I received from the VB news group.

Mathlab? The only one I can think of being around over 15 years :-)

FORTRAN. I've reused FORTRAN aerodynamics models that were 30+ years old
because they captured the domain model and the domain model hasn't changed.

LISP. I've reused LISP symbolic math processing models were 20 ish
years old because they captured the domain model and the domain model
hasn't changed.

Java was designed for portable GUIs, though is a lot more general
purpose now. Does your domain model map well to the constructs in Java?
Even if you can reuse a GUI in 20 years time, Java swing will look as
old to a user then as MSDOS 3 does to a OS X user now.

C models the architecture of a defunct hardware platform, and maps well
enough to other hardware platforms to give performance efficiencies.

The closer a language is to the language of your domain model, and the
better the the representation of the domain you produce, the longer your
software will by usefully reused.
Pete

[Alistair Maclean]

In message <MP************ ************@ne ws.megapathdsl. net>, Randy
Howard <ra**********@F OOmegapathdslBA R.net> writes

What about ruby, perl, various assembly groups, applescript, delphi,
ada, awk, dylan, eiffel, forth, fortran, icon, lsip, logo, modula2,
oberon, php, scheme, smalltalk, prolog, etc.?

A truly astute troll would have included at least the above.

A with-it truly astute troll would have mentioned Rebol.

--
Alistair Maclean

[Marco van de Voort]

In article <3f************ ***********@new s.dial.pipex.co m>, pete kirkham wrote:

Marco van de Voort wrote:

In article <45************ **************@ posting.google. com>, James Cameron wrote:

Hi I'm developing a program and the client is worried about future
reuse of the code. Say 5, 10, 15 years down the road. This will be a
major factor in selecting the development language. Any comments on
past experience, research articles, comments on the matter would be
much appreciated. I suspect something like C would be the best based
on comments I received from the VB news group.

Mathlab? The only one I can think of being around over 15 years :-)

FORTRAN. I've reused FORTRAN aerodynamics models that were 30+ years old
because they captured the domain model and the domain model hasn't changed.

LISP. I've reused LISP symbolic math processing models were 20 ish
years old because they captured the domain model and the domain model
hasn't changed.

Don't be annecdotical. Reuse all code you rewrite now, and something
that will be in major use then (so that reusing makes sense at all)

I can only think of two possible candidates. TeX, and Mathlab, both in a
different realm. I wouldn't dare to bet on another one.

[JerryMouse]

Jacob wrote:

Harley wrote:

NOTHING will run 10 years from now!

You might want to qualify this by language.

Just keep it as a rule of thumb. If something made today
runs 10 years from now it is either pure luck or a dead
slow organization. If you expect the world to go on, you
oraganize your software so it can go along.

The fact that 15 years old Cobol (or C or PL/1 or UniFace)
software is still out there is no *proof* that it has
outlived time. Maybe it's is just written in a way that
makes it impossible to move on.

If you work for a large organization (more than 100,000 employees), I'll
wager dollars to donuts your paycheck was produced by a COBOL program that's
more than twenty years old (assuming your company has been around that
long).

A prudent company wants a piece of software - like a building - to just sit
there and do its job. While 'ancient' programs do have to have maintenance
from time to time, there's not a lot of maintenance to do on a General
Ledger program (whose basic rules have remined unchanged since the 16th
century).