A large chunk of the questions on this site are something like, "Is there a tool to convert jQuery to Prototype?" or, "Is there a way to find dead methods in my PHP codebase?".
Aside from the typical answer of, "You shouldn't do that" which is entirely unhelpful, I'm looking for a framework to support these types of tasks. Here is how it would work:
- Person wants to convert X to Y or do any other 'difficult' but largely rule-based task.
- Person uses an app that runs the conversion through a ruleset and makes changes where possible (certain things in Prototype have an exact equivalent in jQuery).
- Where the app has possible outcomes, those outcomes are presented to the user so he/she can choose.
- Where the app can't make a determination, some sort of blank screen is given to the user to do something, or make a notation for future work.
I think this class of app could be used in conjunction with multiple people of varying skillsets for doing larger projects. It could also be used for hybrid quantitave/human trading schemes (i.e. the hedge fund software makes preliminary choices and then a human trader tweaks it - the app makes this process faster). It could also be used to 'get halfway there' for large tasks like finding dead code.
My question is: are there frameworks out there for creating such an app already? There is clearly a massive need for this entire class of software but I have no idea if it exists or not.