Moving a Development Team from C++ to Java?

Nicros asks: "I work for a company that is working toward an FDA approved software development process. We have always used C++ in a Windows environment, and we have more than 6 years of code, applications and libraries developed. Because of our long and convoluted software development history, our existing architecture is difficult to manage for a group of our relatively small size (5 FTEs), and development times are rather slow. Our IT director has made the decision that, to speed up development times, we need to re-architect all of our existing code, from C++ to Java." What would be the best way to go about handling such a migration? In a general sense, how would you go about moving a development team from one language to another? "Our IT director has hired a 3rd party (offshore) company assist us with this migration, and they have recommended that we change from C++ to Java, Spring and Hibernate. We are all professional programmers here, so learning Java is not a problem for those of us who don't know it. The real question is: what do we gain from moving to Java? Or conversely: what do we lose by moving away from C++? Additionally, will one language or another really help us to get FDA approval?

I personally am a bit suspicious of this solution. I find it more likely that the problems we have would persist across languages or architectures (lack of time and resources leading to buggy code, lack of direction from marketing, and so on). However, having not gone through this process before, I would be interested to hear any thoughts, stories of similar experiences, or pros and cons."

Comments

Java

[Toba82]

Why switch to Java? That really IS a damn good question.

Re:What you gain from moving to Java

[mcvos]

[quote]The real question is: what do we gain from moving to Java?[/quote] About a gig of memory use.

Not if you write your code well. IMO C++ is obsolete for enterprise applications. Java is just as fast, more flexible, and there are tons of good frameworks for all sorts of things.

The question is, can you afford to switch to Java? Can you afford the redesign, rewriting that much code, retraining the programmers? Then again, can you afford not to? If you've got a huge, complex framework that's hard to work with, and there's an easier Java framework that fits your current needs perfectly, a switch could be a really good idea.

It depends entirely on the situation. I wouldn't trust managers and offshore consultants to make this decision, but if the programmers say the current situation is unworkable, and a switch to Java will help solve your problems, then it may be a good idea. Have your best architect delve into the possibilities of Java frameworks, and listen to him. Or hire a new architect with more Java experience, if your architect doesn't know enough about Java.

There's no simple yes or no answer to the question. I really love Java, and I think C++ for enterprise applications is obsolete, but there are still many situations where a switch is going to be a really bad idea.