Ideal Profile of a Developer in a Software Migration

30. March 2007 14:48 by jpena in General  //  Tags:   //   Comments (0)

During the planning stages of a migration project, many customers ask about the ideal profile that the members of the migration team should have. The job of migrating an application is very technical, so having skilled developers is a must. After several migration projects, we have identified a basic set of characteristics that are very desirable in the developers that will port an application to a new platform:

  • Advanced knowledge of the target platform: while migrating the application, developers will face the challenge of implementing a set of features and behaviors of the source platform that are not directly available in the target technology. This cannot be achieved without a high degree of knowledge of the destination platform.
  • Knowledge of the source platform: it is also very important for team members to know the expected behavior and results of commonly used features of the source platform, especially those that are not directly supported in the target technology.
  • Migration knowledge and experience: naturally, having developers with previous experience in migration projects is quite helpful. As these developers are not very common, here is where ArtinSoft consultants are most helpful in a joint migration project.
  • Knowledge of the application to be migrated: during the migration process, many lines of code, methods and classes of the original application will have to be manually changed or adjusted to work in the new platform. Since there will be a constant modification process until the application reaches Functional Equivalence, knowledge of the internal structure and coding of this application is very desirable. In a joint migration project, here is where customer’s developers are most helpful.