Migration disaster from classic asp to .net

Question

Does anyone have experience with companies that have migrated from classic Asp to .Net badly?

In this company, the "folder" icon that represents a Solution and the "folder" icon that represents a Project and the "folder" icon that represents a file directory are all the same thing.

The .Net IDE is just a better notepad.

The entire company is in one massive Solution. The code for what should be many, completely separate Projects is all intermixed within and spread out amongst a set of "folders" in the "Master Solution". Each of these folders contains motley information for any and every application the place has ever created in .Net.

My question is what happens to companies like this? Do they go out of business? Do they stay with it indefinitely, sticking with the same, labor-intensive "code base" maintenance nightmare that no real .Net programmer can stand? Do they ever see the light? If so, how?

I must know.

Answer 1

It's possible, they won't migrate. The code still works, it's just old. Most likely what would happen is that the project will be replaced a small part at a time, but not with an overall strategy. It will be slow and drudging. There will be talks about rewriting the application, but it will never actually happen. A lot of the places have the mentality, if it isn't broken don't fix it. If it does what they need it to do, it will be around for a long time.

Answer 2

I work for the company which has as intranet 30,000 pages.. Written in classic asp. Not to mention the 200+ internet application sin ASP and VB components. ;-)

We still get good business (almost 60%) online. Cant migrate soon. We do it slowly. Better do new projects in .net. I agree to Kevin if it works why broke it.

Mos of the time the business dont se any good reason to migrate if its working properly.

Answer 3

But does it still work? If it does, than why, especially in this economy would you upgrade? just for the heck of it? There needs to be a better reason that that.

Do you scrape all the paint off of your house and re-paint it everythime Glidden introduces a new/better formula that is supposed to last longer? Probably not. You repaint it when it needs repainting.

Answer 4

This excellent article is old, but definitely sums up the "new vs. old" technology debate, and what it actually means to business.

If the old technology is a proven, stable money-maker, rewriting it in a newer language only adds risk.