3 ms·

Probably not: the application has around 100 printouts (with tons of spaghetti logic behind it making it impossible to count all variations) and it will be very

by dejv 10y ago

Probably not: the application has around 100 printouts (with tons of spaghetti logic behind it making it impossible to count all variations) and it will be very hard to switch to new reporting framework. The big problem with legacy software without huge user base and limited space for growth is that it just don't make sense to invest huge amount of time and money in it.

stcredzero 10y ago
This is funny. I saw the same pattern in Smalltalk apps: Reports being the locus of spaghetti code. Reports are added as an afterthought. Then the resulting spaghetti code patterns are replicated cut & paste, where they then slowly melt into surrounding code in a way that makes them impossible to extricate. After some years, it then becomes obvious that reports are the primary driver of value for those clients.
- leesalminen 10y ago
  Ugh, this. Have you had luck escaping that hell?
  - stcredzero 10y ago
    I knew enough to keep myself away from those projects.
- dejv 10y ago
  Yeah, I tried to migrate out of that mess into other tools and it ends up as even bigger mess. Now I do have three different reporting systems in three different technologies (QuickReports in Delphi, code that generate HTML code from inside Delphi code and then XQuery based declarative code that can be customised by (/for) customer) and I ended up in even deeper hole.