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?

I confess - I only speak one language (excluding programming languages of course!). Some people might even tell you I have difficulty with this one. However, I was still asked to work on the technical angle of converting a website to a multi-lingual website - to include French and German language variations. The actual “language” side would be handled by someone else - phew I thought, oh and apparently the project would be a breeze. Now, the older I get the more worried I look when people tell me things are going to be a breeze because more often than not they aren’t. This was to become no exception.

Finding a translator was simple enough, our local chamber of commerce were very helpful in this respect. I was a little concerned when there was no project meeting, discussion or even email communication to lay out the requirement but as the “language” side was being handled by someone else I was not too concerned. As long as I received the text then the technical implementation should be quite straightforward.  

It took just over a week for me to prepare a notepad file full of text to send to the translators but then a number of Word files arrived via email and to my surprise the job was declared complete. It seems the translators and the person handling the “language” side had decided to approach the translation by saving pages from the website into Word and translate them directly. “Now all you have to do is load them up on the web server and you’re set”. No, I’m sorry I reply - but we are far from “set”. You see the website is dynamically loaded and uses ASP with HTML templates and the content can change following a browser refresh (and some during an image or link hover). In addition, a large amount of text is saved as images to ensure that it is consistent - the translating people didn’t do any translation of image and left them the way they were – ouch.  

I still managed to muddle through the French version but the German version had a bunch of missing text which turned out that someone had marked portions of it as hidden text in Word - by default Word doesn’t appear to show hidden text. After several dozen emails back and forth we discovered the problem (by accident as it turns out) but the delays were still there.  As I was preparing the notepad file which eventually never got used I also realised something quite important. Certain phrases don’t translate very well and the impact (and sometimes even the meaning) of words and phrases can be lost and even worse much of the content is aimed at the UK market and so refers very much to the UK and to UK guidance and regulations. Of what value, interest or use this might be to someone in France or Germany - I am left to wonder!  

So what is the moral of the story? If someone comes along with a job and tells you it’s going to be a breeze - look busy, for heavens sake, look busy.