Careful study of the HamCalc shows a number of quirks. Some are funny, some are just examples of the need for unit test frameworks. The Wikispaces for the modernization project is here: http://hamcalc.wikispaces.com/home
For example, the following line of code, in GW-Basic, will (usually) set Y …
more ...Some additional points on using Python 2.7 in a way that bridges the gap to Python 3.2. The steps are small and simple. You can start taking them now.
Recently I suggested that one should always include from __future__ import division, print_function on every module. Always. Every Module …
more ...Once in a great while, you see someone engaging in Obstinate Idiocy.
Here's my recent example.
They're solving some kind of differential equation. Not sure why.
Symptom 1 of Obstinate Idiocy is No Rational Justification. The explanation is often "that's not relevant, what's relevant is this other thing I want …
more ...Wow. The response to modernizing HamCalc was overwhelming. Apparently there are a fair number of people who also think that HamCalc is a treasure to be preserved, improved and added-to. If you're interested, start here: http://hamcalc.wikispaces.com/home You can ask to be a member of this wiki …
more ...It's important to address language or platform incompatibility as consequences of technology modernization. The reason why we have to do manual conversions of software is because of the language incompatibility issue. We must convert manually when no tool can do the conversion.
There are several layers to this.
After looking at this suite of examples, we can see some patterns emerging. There seem to be several operating principles.
A Domain-Specific Language (DSL) can provide some intellectual leverage. We can always write long and convoluted programs in a general-purpose programming language (like Python, Java or C).
Sometimes it can make more sense to invent a new domain-specific language and implement the solution in that language.
Sometimes, even well-written, highly …
At an insurance company, I encountered an application that had been in place for thirty years.
Classic flat-file, mainframe COBOL. And decades old. It had never been replaced with a packaged solution. It had never been converted to a SQL database. It had never been rewritten in VB to run …
By the early aughts (2001-2005) Visual Basic had gone from state of the art to a legacy application language. Code written in VB was being replaced with something more modern (generally Java.)
Having worked with COBOL and Fortran legacy programs, it's easy to describe this legacy VB code as an …