When not to salvage the legacy application

I don’t know how many times I’ve had to break the news to a potential client that:

• Yes, that is a great vision for where your web site needs to go, and
• No, your current web site cannot be patched to get there - it has to be redone.

Judith Hurwitz’s post on When not to salvage the legacy application should be mandatory reading for anyone getting ready to retool/revamp/reuse their current software applications.

One of the hardest things for organizations to do is to retire old applications. Unlike hardware that tends to be replaced on a regular cycle, old software sticks around way too long. It definitely over stays its welcome.

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We are finally seeing software companies providing a path to moving code into the new world that is based on reusable, modular services that are architected. The next stage in the movement towards a service oriented architecture is applying this approach to the new generation of Web 2.0. Let me add a disclaimer — this isn’t magic. There is hard work here. None of these approaches or tools are automatic. They give customers a head start but there is hard work to be done. The alternative is to hold your breath and hope that things don’t break too quickly.