We recently gathered up the Q&A articles we have written over the years and moved them to this location in the public section of this WIKI. The articles cover topics ranging from general tool use, to methodology concepts and practices, to common problems and solutions.
Check it out and Contact Us or post your comments if you want additional information. Enjoy!
I happened to notice this article Popularity Index: Classic Visual Basic Hangs In There — Visual Studio Magazine regarding the ongoing popularity of VB6 in the world of programming.
It’s true: we do get a lot of inquiries, from all sorts of companies, who are still building and running VB6/COM apps. Most of these applications are at least 200K lines of code and a few are over a million LOC. Despite the increasing risk of depending on VB6, these legacy systems persist as VB6 because they deliver value. I will add that, in every case, the technical teams that maintain these VB6 applications understand they must get off VB6 sooner or later, but they struggle make the upgrade project a business priority. In some cases, we find organizations have tried and failed to “just rewrite” their legacy systems ending up with a “partway there system” — with some .NET around the edges and a big mass of mature VB6 functionality at the center. The fact is that rewriting large systems requires a generous investment of vision, creativity, experience and resources.
Nevertheless, for the vast majority of these companies, moving their systems from VB6 to something else is a matter of survival. We believe ambitious upgrade projects require a new paradigm: new tools and methods. That is what we are building at Great Migrations. Read through the articles on this portal and Contact us if you want to learn more.
Great Migrations recently assisted a client in the migration of a large specialty insurance system from VB6 to C#. Our tools and methods dramatically accelerated the client’s digital transformation initiative while lowering cost and risk. Learn more from this article and testimonial on the Great Migrations portal.
gmBasic is a code transformation tool that reads, interprets, and rewrites VB6/ASP/COM systems to one of the .NET languages (C# or VB.NET). Based on feedback from our clients and migration projects in the field, we are continuously improving gmBasic so as to help users more easily produce cleaner and more correct results. Most recently, this work included the general improvements needed to produce build-complete C# code for a leading electronic medical records (EMR) product. This EMR system was both large: 1.8M LOC implementing 85,000 methods, contained in 7000 unique code files, organized by 153 inter-related VBPs, and complex: having over 4000 Implements statements, extensive interface inheritance, and heavy use of over 200 external COM/Interop libraries. This distribution, Version 31.12, includes several enhancements:
Powered by gmBasic, gmStudio is a development environment for analyzing code and developing custom VB6/ASP/COM to .NET upgrade solutions. We are continuously adding functionality to gmStudio and making it easier to use. This distribution includes several enhancements:
Powered by gmBasic, gmslAPI is a .NET API for automating our upgrade engine and accessing the semantic models produced by our unique linguistic compilation technology. gmslAPI also includes classes for managing complex upgrade rules and integrating with gmStudio. This API was updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions.
gmStudio ships with a collection of sample upgrade rules that can be used to add custom features to your upgrade solution. These XML documents and gmSL scripts are distributed as source that you may modify to fit your unique requirements. The sample rules were updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions. See also additions and changes in gmStudio Extensions Repository.
Great Migrations publishes a number of sample VB6/ASP upgrade solutions to illustrate the capabilities of gmStudio. The sample upgrade solutions were updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions.
gmBasic is a code transformation tool that reads, interprets, and rewrites VB6/ASP/COM systems to one of the .NET languages (C# or VB.NET). Based on feedback from our clients and migration projects in the field, we are continuously improving gmBasic so as to help users more easily produce cleaner and more correct results. Most recently, this work included the general improvements needed to produce build-complete C# code for a 1.8M LOC electronic medical records application and a 500K LOC Architectural Design system. This distribution, Version 31.08, includes several enhancements:
Powered by gmBasic, gmStudio is a development environment for analyzing code and developing custom VB6/ASP/COM to .NET upgrade solutions. We are continuously adding functionality to gmStudio and making it easier to use. This distribution includes several enhancements:
Powered by gmBasic, gmslAPI is a .NET API for automating our upgrade engine and accessing the semantic models produced by our unique linguistic compilation technology. gmslAPI also includes classes for managing complex upgrade rules and integrating with gmStudio. This API was updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions.
gmStudio ships with a collection of sample upgrade rules that can be used to add custom features to your upgrade solution. These XML documents and gmSL scripts are distributed as source that you may modify to fit your unique requirements. The sample rules were updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions. See also additions and changes in gmStudio Extensions Repository.
Great Migrations publishes a number of sample VB6/ASP upgrade solutions to illustrate the capabilities of gmStudio. The sample upgrade solutions were updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions.
gmBasic is a code transformation tool that reads, interprets, and rewrites VB6/ASP/COM systems to one of the .NET languages (C# or VB.NET). Based on feedback from our clients and migration projects in the field, we are continuously improving gmBasic so as to help users more easily produce cleaner and more correct results. Most recently this work included the general improvements needed to produce build-complete C# code for a 1.8M LOC electonic medical records application and improvements for the migration of error handling . This distribution, Version 31.04, includes several enhancements:
Powered by gmBasic, gmStudio is a development environment for analyzing code and developing custom VB6/ASP/COM to .NET upgrade solutions. We are continuously adding functionality to gmStudio and making it easier to use. This distribution includes several enhancements:
Powered by gmBasic, gmslAPI is a .NET API for automating our upgrade engine and accessing the semantic models produced by our unique linguistic compilation technology. gmslAPI also includes classes for managing complex upgrade rules and integrating with gmStudio. This API was updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions.
gmStudio ships with a collection of sample upgrade rules that can be used to add custom features to your upgrade solution. These XML documents and gmSL scripts are distributed as source that you may modify to fit your unique requirements. The sample rules were updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions. See also additions and changes in gmStudio Extensions Repository.
Great Migrations publishes a number of sample VB6/ASP upgrade solutions to illustrate the capabilities of gmStudio. The sample upgrade solutions were updated to reflect the latest product improvements and conventions.