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Legacy is alive and well

Posted in Legacy, Technology, Programming, Management on January 14, 2008 at 6:25 pm

Reading Davey Winders Blog post regarding Brainstorm and its 24th Birthday got me thinking about legacy applications and in particular our in-house bespoke ERP system that I am currently caretaker and developer of. It is too easy these days to consider an application useful only if it has a graphical user interface but I imagine that there are many older applications still in active and essential use today – that is certainly the case in our business.

Originally our ERP system was an MRP package (before ERP became an all encompassing term) and started out life serving the automotive industry – until we bought the rights to develop the source code when the original development company moved on to other projects. This software was and still is developed in COBOL, originally Ace COBOL then RM COBOL and now Microfocus COBOL on AIX. The back-end file system isn’t even a database - it still utilises C-ISAM indexed files and very few are simple sequential files. File and record locking problems still occur (though less frequently these days) and new report programs have to be hard coded by hand – I sometimes still use those sheets of 80×25 grid paper for laying out screens and reports!

The thing I discovered whilst looking through some of the code recently is that quite a few of the older programs in our ERP date back to 1978 which means that this year our ERP will be celebrating its 30th birthday! Obviously parts of the software have changed a lot since those days and I’ve completely rewritten the front end and the majority of the everyday programs and added all sorts of bells and whistles to others. But not all of the code has changed and there are still programs that are relatively untouched bar minor updates to make them compile using modern compilers – there is no windows front end – in fact no graphical user interface at all - just a text based interface (though we do use colour now), no mouse control and no WYSIWYG print preview options. New users are sometimes surprised that they can’t click on menu options with the mouse and often quiz me why they have to keep CAPS LOCK on when entering data into input fields.

However, one of the strengths of our business over the years has always been quoted as being our strong ERP software which has worked with us and for us for all these years and just goes to show that legacy applications are still alive and well - after all ‘if it ain’t broke…’ – so to our ERP system I wish a very happy 30th birthday.

I wonder how many other so called ‘legacy’ applications are still out there and serving their business partners faithfully?