On 4 Jul 2013, at 19:22, Sean Bamforth <[email protected]> wrote: > I can see where you're coming from, and believe me when I say that I have > serious concerns about doing a rewrite in a whole new language. But the main > impetus to this rewrite is not because the system is wrong. It's because the > language is wrong; it's old and you can't get developers.
That's very important information and sheds a lot of light on the situation. I didn't pick up from the discussion that this was the cause. In this case you'll benefit from someone with experience dealing with legacy code, as I'm guessing the app has little to no automated testing, and contains years of assumptions, business rules, and edge cases that may or may not be still valid. If the app is of any considerable size you might want to consider replacing it incrementally (perhaps like how you're currently providing it with a REST API, as one example). This would demand more skilled and experienced developers, but is considerably less risky than a big bang release. Since you say one of your current difficulties is finding developers, it's only fair to warn you that it's not that easy to find Rails developers in the current market either. Most people I know have no shortage of work. If the app is generating enough revenue for you to bid for at least one experienced person in the contract market you may be ok. (I'm assuming at least some of the existing developers will stay around to learn the new tech.) Otherwise there is a case for broadening your technology options, or you may find yourself in a similar situation staffing-wise, albeit with a much better technology stack. Ash -- http://www.patchspace.co.uk/ http://www.linkedin.com/in/ashmoran -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NWRUG" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nwrug-members. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
