[Info-Ingres] ABF Debugger / NAIUA

[OldSchool]

On Nov 20, 7:31 am, Betty & Karl Schendel <schen... at kbcomputer.com>
wrote:
> At 8:08 AM +0000 11/20/07, simonl via DBMonster.com wrote:
>
> >I don't think the budget need to stretch to $3 million for a 1000 frame app.
> >Perhaps $500,000 so long as the osq generator problem doesn't apply (yes, I
> >think this one would be a killer).  But my argument was if the development
> >effort being applied to such an application was enough to justify spending
> >significant amounts of time and/or money on getting a debugger, why not stump
> >up a little bit more up front to go to something which could reduce your long
> >term development costs.
>
> Because the numbers you are comparing are typically different
> by at least two or three orders of magnitude;  with the
> development/debugging number being the smaller.
>
> Feasibility of conversion also depends on how the app
> was written.  Larger apps will tend to use more ABF tricks
> to save code and implement clever forms display idioms,
> and these tricks don't convert well.  I was involved with
> the TelesisMFG ERP app some years back, and the notion of
> converting it automatically is laughable -- I defy any
> program analyzer to understand more than a fraction of
> what that code is doing.  (OTOH for a human reader, it
> is or at least was relatively decent code.)
>
> I'm with Roy;  a conversion of any significant app should
> only be done after a proper business case analysis.
>
> Karl

I'm not sure where simon it getting his numbers....but even at
$500,000, you'd have a hard time making a business case.  The OP seems
to imply that he wanted to examine one (or possibly a few) pieces of
ABF with a *free* debugger.  Besides, the last time I looked, the
actual cost of conversion was well in excess of $500 / frame