Michael C said:
Someone at work told me that he has estimated it is taking him 5 to 10
times longer to write an app as a web app instead of windows app. He's
been working on it for 18 months and reckons he could write the whole
thing again as a windows app in 6 weeks. Does this sound right? Note this
is for an app that isn't necessarily a good candidate for a web app.
Cheers,
Michael
I can turn around and write the app it took him to write in asp.net in 18
months and write the same application with the same functionality in less
time! Does that sound right?
The point is, the Web application doesn't necessarily take more time to
write. If it took him 18 months to write as a web app, and he really can do
it in 6 weeks as a windows app, then he really needs to step back and
re-think how he has been doing it so far and look up "best-practices" for
the project.
Just because it is a Web Project doesn't mean it takes a long time to write.
They are different ways to provide the same information. If the project(s)
were split into separate tiers, then he would write both apps at
approximately the same amount of time. The business logic and data access
layers should not care if the front end (user interface) is a web
application or a windows application. When written in this way, the
development time wouldn't be "Web App" or "Win App" specific.
I think either he is developing the web application wrong, or he is wrong
about the estimated time it would take to rewrite it as a Windows
Application; given, he hasn't spent 18 months gathering the requirements and
having to backtrack what he has been working on in the first place.
Mythran
