[Info-vax] Moving away from OpenVMS

[Mac Decman]

On Wed, 16 May 2012 17:59:36 -0700 (PDT), johnson.eric at gmail.com
wrote:

>On Wednesday, May 16, 2012 2:01:52 PM UTC-4, David Froble wrote:
>
>> The basic question I put to people is, if you don't have to spend a lot of
>> money this year for what at best will be a sideways move, and most likely
>> a downward move (you'll never get it all working as good as your current
>> system), then why do so?
>
>I think this is very true.  
>
>If for some reason, you do begin a port or some sort of migration effort, you need to have a crystal clear understanding of what you expect the benefit to be at the end.  You need that clarity because you need to be sure that your project is successful along the way.
>
>Big projects like this have an inherent need to go off the rails and right into the weeds.  Unlike real life, judging the success of a software project can come down to a matter of opinion and perspective.  One man's junk is another man's antique.
>
>If you begin with a woozy understanding of what the benefit is - the entire effort will meander into a thousand little directions and not achieve a whole lot other than spending a lot of quality engineering time that doesn't add up to much business value.
>
>EJ

Can I keep this for a quote on all software improvement projects?  Oh,
how many times do they meander...

Mark DeArman