Legacy Software and Software Legacy

By Kurt Whaley

We hear the term Legacy Software thrown around a lot.  For me that loosely translates to: software that was written using some technology stack earlier than the current one. So of course we immediately translate that into “inferior" software. It is, however, pretty amazing how much sweat and tears went into creation and maintenance of that “inferior" software, and how much value and reduced risk it continues to bring to the total solution. Remember there are development teams that have stayed back to maintain these applications, and they have lots of years invested as well as lots of pride and ownership in what their software contributes. Weigh the risk and ROI before you make any knee-jerk decisions to throw it out … maybe it should live on.
 
This brings me to Software Legacy. Isn’t it crazy what legacy software can have? Well, at least the software that ever got shipped. Imagine all of the people out there who would like just a single tweak to some old piece of code that you shipped a decade ago and long since quit supporting or, better yet, lost the source code to. I guess the obvious solution is “upgrade," but you know that old app does exactly what they want it to do except for that one thing. And what about all of the times you said:  “If I had known this then I would have done that. Once upon a time, I built (as a charitable contribution) an application for a nonprofit organization. I was very careful to make it easily installable, self-configuring and intuitive to operate because I knew that the users would not be very computer-savvy, and that there was no network to support them. What I did not envision was that the application would become a big hit, and spread to other clubs throughout the land, and as a result a network was formed, which in turn spawned a user group and they had a whole list of ENHANCMENTS that they wanted. This was where I reentered the picture. Lessoned learned: Software creates a Legacy.

Kurt Whaley is director of the Software Architecture & Design Group at CHR Solutions.