Tracy,

Thanks for you reponse.

Is your company going to foot the bill for training at least?

Yes. I'm trying to get everyone a subscription to LearnDevNow (AppDev) so that people can learn at their own rate in the beginning and then hopefully we can have an inhouse training. Or in the other order.

Are they expecting to write all apps quickly and accurately and have inexperienced programmers support them? How soon is ASAP?

ASAP is 3 years. Sounds like a long time, but we have 250 apps (some are really small and some are epic). We are understaffed at the moment and are always treading water just in VFP.

Do you have a deadline? Is someone planning a release schedule?

I cant' too much about our one customer except we are up for contract in 3 years. We will begin writing our bid in 2 years.

Release schedule - no plans yet. This process is in the early stages.

Do some apps rely on others or call others and can you do the re-writes in a logical progression or perhaps change out the UI and leave some VFP data crunching in there for a while until the entire pack is rewritten?

Wow, good question. Dependencies will change drastically when we do go to .NET because the data will need to be in SQL Server and not FoxPro tables. That will change a lot of things. Some apps share data, some are standalone and don't.

What are your options for delivery?

Delivery to the customer is in the form of data and reports only. We don't deliver software apps.

>Your comments about do...while and scan...endscan and linqpad being frightening worry me. Based on your responses I've read so far (not the recommendations by others because I've read a lot of good ones but those may not be options for you), you may only have a couple of viable options if you have a deadline less than 1 year or 2 years (better). A good foundation and approach will serve the company best for all apps and future apps. Future apps will go much faster after everything is in place. That means design and layers be handled correctly up front and the time taken to do that. The first app will go slow, but the rest should go quickly. Otherwise your options are:

1) You need AT LEAST one experienced developer in the route you choose and time to train.

We are in the process of hiring a C# programmer now. However, the min requirements are only 3 years of .NET.

Buy a GOOD RAD tool/framework and train developers on it and let go of the rest who can't learn and hire more experienced developers when budget allows.

I have Mere Mortals and I like it. Don't know much about the others.

>2) Contract it out...

It's possible.

> but if they do not grow with the company, when the new apps are done and the older apps no longer supported, let them go. Harsh, but a business reality.

You are correct. It's harsh, but might be the reality.

>Is someone assigned to track all ongoing modifications/bug fixes/new design in the existing apps while the .net coding is going on so all of that can be also be tasked into the new .net apps? If you support and update the existing apps while recoding in .net you have to ensure all of that gets into the .net apps as well. Do you have any tools at your disposal for that? Do you have TFS? Have you looked at SCRUM and sprint planning (Agile development)?

Good point. I guess we can install TFS.

>Who is going to do code review?

I guess that will be us inhouse as we currently do it in VFP.