24 augusti, 2020

Be future-proof

One of the most troublesome problems with a large software system is replacing one of the included technical components with a more modern variant or from another vendor. Just changing the database can be a big challenge.

This often means that you stay in old technology for too long, do not upgrade to new versions or do not take sufficient advantage of new libraries and services. Simply because it will be too much work to change in all code.

Robots make it easier to change platforms

That it is cumbersome and time consuming is simply due to the fact that traditional program code contains two things at the same time.

  1. Partly code that performs the business benefit and executes the business logic itself.
  2. Partly code that is needed to properly utilize the platform on which the program runs. These are, for example, operating systems, library services, databases and much more. 

Then changing the part of the code that is platform-specific, without changing the programmed business benefit is usually a very extensive manual task. In the worst case, it can take up so many resources that it simply does not pay off.

Robots also help with this. You can change the technical platform more quickly because most of the information about the system’s content is in the specifications and not in the usual program code. This is simply because a robot works with two different inputs, a specification of the business content and a template with platform-specific details.

With robots, the task is instead to build a new template that fits the new platform. This task can then be done in parallel with the normal development of the product.

Faster to build prototypes

It is also much easier to try new technologies, without having to rewrite a lot of code. In the same way, only the robot’s template needs to be customized, 

A prototype can therefore have the same content as the existing product. The only difference is that some functionality may not be implemented in the templates yet, but can then be developed clearly later.

Do you also want to be future-proof?