application and web app technologies

[l v]

ccc wrote:
> [snip] We are just your basic IT shop, system
> and network administration, hardware, help desk, the web site, and
> database administration. This is also the reason for the 'bad code' (
> which we have in abundance.) People who are not programmers and whose
> job it isn't to program will not write good code.

Technology is not your problem just as the above are not the reasons
for the bad code.  In my 15 years in IT, I've see bad COBOL, Quickjob,
JCL, Java, shell scripts, DB modeling, Perl, SQL, ABAP, etc.  Bad code
moves from one language to another.  Procedures such as good coding
standards, peer reviews, adherence to coding standards, etc are the
key.

>
> Yeah, well, if you have a database admin writing his scripts, a network
> admin writing his scripts, and a couple of floaters trying to fix
> things that break, with no one holding the reins, you get little
> universes. Which is what happened and which we want to be proactive and
> prevent in the future.
>
> Exactly! And a major decision is deciding on a technology so that we'll
> all be using the same thing.

Ah, one language fits all.  Perhaps OO COBOL should be considered.  :)

>
> Actually, Java was a pretty easy decision to make, since we already had
> a problem with Perl, [snip]

IMO, your problem was not with Perl, it was not having standards,
reviews and quite possibility the staff's unfamiliarity with the Perl
language.  Is it unreadable code or code that  uses more advanced
techniques than the programmers knowledge?

Len