Ian D. K. Kelly

Conversion of Existing Systems

• Change must be smoothly integrated
• Change must be thought about and explained
• Human language is complex
• Technology is highly varied

You may have existing systems that require change. This may be change to cope with new buisines requirements, year 2000 compliance, creating output and accepting input in different human languages, or moving to new machines or operating systems.

There are several things to think about:

• Change must be integrated with the existing systems, so that the user can continue to operate his business without interuption during the period of change. I have been through this before;
• There are many consequences to even a small change. These must be thought about, and integrated into the overall plan, and into the user's perceptions of what the developers are going to deliver;
• Human languages are complex. It is no good having language-transformation projects overseen by people who do not understand this. I have studied linguistics, I speak fluent French (and hence am well aware of the depth to which languages differ), and I have already overseen a major transformation of a system from English input/output to Japanese input/output - about the most extreme case one could imagine;
• I have wide experience of many different computer operating systems and computer languages, having spent quite a while writing both compilers and code-conversion tools.