Is traditional software development still enough?

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Hi all,

I have a question regarding the power of traditional software solutions. I am used to developing administrative systems for reasonably sized organizations. However, the larger the organization, the more complex the system, and also the increased likelihood of the use of less traditional (standard) applications. I wonder why this is.

For example, the systems I have been building have been accomplished using WinForms/C#, ASP.NET, SqlServer and up to 2000 stored procedures. If I were to start a new bank today, would this suffice (technically and practically)? Or why not?

To me, nothing really beats the flexibility and simplicity of WinForms development. I know that some OOA/D is hard to accomplish with it, but the ease of use makes it (in my opinion) a good choice for any (desktop) administrative applications.

I know that there are many new ways of developing software, but the problem is that these often disappear after a short while. To me, it makes a lot of sense to work with solutions that have a proven track record and that have been around and stable for a number of years - especially for an organization in need of extremely reliable software (such as a bank).

Do you agree or is there
1. a good reason why more powerful (?) software solutions are needed for a BIG system

2. a good reason (apart from OO neatness) why working with the WinForms - ASP.NET - relational DB combo is not suitable anymore?

Love to all,

Petter

Posted 28-Apr-15 6:06am

petter2012

Updated 28-Apr-15 6:08am

v2

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Philippe Mori · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-28T06:55:00

Solution 2

WPF beats WinForms for the flexibility but it is not as simple to understand and use properly.

ASP.NET MVC beats ASP.NET for cleaner separation of the model and the view but it is not as simple.

As far as I know both WPF and ASP.NET MVC are more testable too. For large application, it might be huge benefit to have more of the application covered by tests. In fact, for organisation that need reliable software, it is probably a good idea to use test driven software develpment and thus using technologies that are more testable mightbe a huge benefit.

Posted 28-Apr-15 6:55am

Philippe Mori

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petter2012 28-Apr-15 18:02pm

That was a very interesting point! I agree totally that with large projects, test driven applications must be wise. (Actually it's the first strong argument I've seen for ASP.NET MVC and WPF over ASP.NET and WinForms.)

I also agree that MVC and MPF are harder to dig into, and this in turn leads me to the fear of more complex, and thus more error-prone and expensive, development. Writing code is often quite fast, as long as one knows what to write, and WinForms + ASP.NET makes writing reliable code really easy.

Philippe Mori 28-Apr-15 18:19pm

I don't think that MVC or WPF are more error prone once someone has learn how to use them properly. And if properly written, then for large application, then might be many opportunities for code reuse. Also since those technologies help decouple the UI from the model, it should be easier to update the UI at some point.

Abhinav S 29-Apr-15 11:07am

Good comments. 5.

Abhinav S · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-28T06:22:00

There are so many factors before moving into a new set of platforms.
It could depend on your skill sets, what the requirements are and what the clients demand.

A banking group doing back-office work may be happy with an intranet based software developed on windows forms.

A front end banking group may even want mobile app based software since their customers might be doing front end transactions on the app.

Newer stuff is probably not more powerful. It may suit newer requirements like mobile applications etc but is not necessarily providing anything extraordinary if what you / your client is not looking for web / app deployment.

If you are looking at updating your own skills then perhaps you can use some of these new tools.