Gemstone to C#

A Test-First Methodology for Migration of GemStone Systems to .NET By Kirk D. Blackburn

This experience report presents a process that is currently being used to migrate a large, mission-critical VisualAge GemStone Smalltalk system to C# and .NET. Described is an effective, test-first methodology that assures the .NET version system will be source-code identical to the existing GemStone Smalltalk system. Described are the steps of this migration process. Also presented are techniques to deal with the short-comings of the C# language. Experience with moving from GemStone persistence to SQL server is also discussed.


AUTHOR BIO Mr. Blackburn has presented at three prior ESUG conferences. He has more than 22 years of experience in object-oriented technologies. His company, objecThink, founded in 1994, has assisted many companies, primarily in the telecommunications area. Most recently, Mr. Blackburn has focused his career as an Expert Witness helping Attorneys in complex software cases.