Understanding legacy code

I'm using Project Analyzer to learn and complete a 40,000-line VB.Net/SQL Server 2000 prototype written by a coder who is no longer available as a source of insight. Already in two 1-hour sessions I have learned more, and identified more required fixes, than I would have done in a month by reading and exercising the code unaided. As we say in the southern USA, "you cannot beat it with a stick."

Project Analyzer is the best product of its kind I have used in 15 years.

Mike Donnellan

Converting from VB to C#

Project Analyzer has been very helpful. I've had to rewrite several applications for a client from VB to C#.Net. I'm not a VB developer, so this tool has been very useful in figuring out relationships and behavior.

Curtis Forrester

Getting feedback when working alone

I just wanted to tell you again what a wonderful product you have. It struck me tonight, why I find it SO valuable. I don't work in an office with 20 other programmers, so when I program, I have no peers to give me feedback. Project Analyzer makes up quite a bit for that, giving me a 'project review and walkthrough' that would otherwise be impossible to get.

Anyways. I'm going to get the problem count down to 0 before I go to sleep tonight, so I'd best get going!

Kamilche

Identifying controls to replace

Our product utilizes several vendor-supplied Visual Basic controls to allow our clients to navigate our utilities. There are several thousand controls used across several hundred forms. One of the vendors no longer supported the version of their product we had and they did not provide an upgrade path. We needed to identify every control along with the particular event we used from this package in order to identify the effort required to replace the controls.

After installing Project Analyzer and gaining some very elementary familiarity with the operation of the tool, one of our engineers created a report identifying all controls, events and vendors used, down to the procedure level. Originally, I had allocated 2 engineers to 2 days to find a way to capture a snapshot of the impact we were facing. I suggested that maybe Project Analyzer might help. Within 5 minutes of returning to my desk I received an email containing a report of everything I needed to understand to scope our effort. We saved 31 staff hours of effort!!!!! Project Analyzer has more than paid for itself and we have only scratched the surface of our plans for the tool.

Ken Garrison, Fiserv

Cleaning up unused code

The first project I analyzed, I was able to cut the executable from 2,076 KB to 1776 KB by following the recommendations of this program. Very simple installation, easy and intuitive interface and SIMPLY OVERWHELMING data analysis and capabilities.

I have had another opportunity to test its capabilities. The current project is for a customer who is selling their program for from $20,000 to $35,000. I analyzed the existing code and cut the executable down from 1358 KB to 975 KB. Added in all of the changes they wanted (which were substantial and added several other 3rd party controls) and got a final executable size of 1278 KB. Their code had been worked on by at least 6 programmers for the past 4 years with nobody bothering to try to clean it up. I think I have found an entirely new area of programming to specialize in.

Larry Marshall

Spotting more dead code

The thing about its dead code locator is... not only does it spot dead code but it also spots code that will be dead as soon as you remove the code initially marked dead.

Not only that but..... it will spot "Excess Scope" issues and tell you that you can move a variable or procedure to another module if you want to make it Private. It also provides several graphs and statistical reports on just about everything.

Ken Halter, MS-MVP-VB
microsoft.public.vb.general.discussion

Improving quality of undocumented code

A couple of years ago we bought licenses for VB Watch Enterprise Edition and Project Analyser Enterprise Edition. I must say this has made the world of a difference to us, since very little of our existing code (60.000+ lines) was documented properly and we are with a small team of developers. Project Analyser made it possible to improve on quality and finally to make change decisions which affected many forms with confidence.

Theo de Roo, MAF Europe

Discovering garbage in code

I am really happy I bought Project Analyzer! It has helped me to discover a lot garbage in my code. The dead variables, dead return values, procedures, modules, variables written not read, variables read not written etc. is phenomenal, and I guess I am just looking at the top of the iceberg... .NET with Option Strict discovers quite a lot of potential problems, but Project Analyzer finds them all. I do not remember ever having such a good response to support questions for any software as with Aivosto.

Torsten Borg, Fisa

Independent reviews

Pointing out where you need improvements

For all the modules containing code, you can view the module in a 'hypertext' view. This is similar to what you see in the VB code window, only more colourful and you can click on procedures to find out about them. You can also find out information about the module. This is one of Project Analyser's strengths. It gives you information like name, version, lines of code, and information about the number of procedures.
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For each procedure, you can find out about the variables called, whether there are any dead ones. It also provides an analysis of what procedures this current procedure calls, and which ones call it.
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The analysis engine is quick and powerful, and the reports are accurate. They are also ruthless at pointing out where you need improvements, and how complex your code it. I was very surprised at what was pointed out to me about my coding and what improvements there were to make.

John Percival at Developer.com

Visual Basic 6 to .Net Migration

A major problem that faces many Visual Basic programmers is migration of Visual Basic 6 applications to .Net. I will not get into the heated discussions about when, why, and if you should make this migration, but the undeniable fact remains that it is a far from simple task and programmers need all the help they can get. Project Analyzer (Enterprise Edition only) lets you analyze your Visual Basic 6 code for elements and constructs that will cause problems when migrated to .Net.

Do you really need this capability, given that Visual Studio has a Visual Basic 6 to .Net migration wizard? Given the complexity of the issues, involved I prefer not to rely on a single tool. If you first use Project Analyzer to detect .Net incompatibilities in your Visual Basic 6 program and then fix them, you are likely to have better results when you run the migration wizard.

Peter Aitken at DevSource.com

A must

WOW! This program is a MUST for every serious VB programmer. It has tons of cross-reference reports, code optimization suggestions and discover dead code. Rating: 5/5.

"aldo" at Betanews.com