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Asked: 2026-05-12T07:43:55+00:00

I have a bit old project that I would call legacy. Some characteristics of

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I have a bit old project that I would call legacy.

Some characteristics of it are:

  1. It is a working product (for about 3 years) and is under continuous development.
  2. Code-base is pretty large and includes (CS, SQL, ASPX, Jayrock, JS/HTML/CSS etc)
  3. Platform is .NET 1.1.
  4. IDE is Borland C# Builder 2006 (what a …).
  5. Other tool is Enterprise Core Objects 3 (for .NET 1.1) (Model Driven Architecture – O/R-M from UML).
  6. Additionally Telerik RadControls are used.
  7. Mostly one active developer.
  8. Lots of tests for Business Objects, but the UI (WebForms) is not testable ATM at all (no MVP/MVC applied etc).
  9. I have to accept that code quality is not “the best” and remains on the mark “Good enough” (so this is NOT the main reason to rewrite all from scratch)

The problems with this project are:

  1. .NET 1.1 – the platform is not “active” anymore.
  2. IDE – struggling with it all the time. Just pain to work. Bad tooling support, any refactoring is basically made by hands.
  3. ECO3 framework – a LOT of effort to move to ECO5 (and thus .NET 3.5).
  4. Migrating from ECO3 to NHibernate (preferable) will take even more time (as all the logic/tests should be rewritten).
  5. The ECO3 heavily relies on IDE, so it is nearly impossible to change IDE ONLY.
  6. Generally migration to .NET 3.5 will take a lot of time (especially for 1 dev only).

I would like to hear any recommendations/tips on how to deal with this project.
Should I continue working in that environment?
If NOT, what is the best way to migrate the whole project BUT within days (delay in weeks is too long ATM). Yes, I understand it will pay off later, BUT I can’t do that NOW.

Generally any suggestions are welcome.

Cheers,
Dmitriy.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I’d migrate and refactor slowly, in small steps. My suggestions, in order, would be:

    • Migrate to a “better” IDE (one that you like – probably Visual Studio?)
    • Migrate to using .NET 3.5 features. Refactor as needed to take advantage of newer features, like generics and LINQ
    • Start updaing your business logic as needed

    Other than changing the IDE, everything else can be done in very small steps, on small portions of the codebase, via standard refactoring practices. No all out rewriting should be necessary.

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