What is Compass/VB?
Compass/VB is a migration assessment and transformation workbench to support the migration of Visual Basic 6 applications. Compass/VB can reverse engineer enterprise-scale Visual Basic applications and assist in the following assessment capabilities:
- Understanding application inventory, structure, and relationships between components
- Understanding the architecture of the application: the layers, flows, and interactions between components
- Identifying obstacles and migration issues
- Generating assessment reports
- Advising how to migrate the application: which parts are translatable and which parts should be rewritten
Compass/VB also has some initial transformation capabilities. A POC has been implemented through integration with the Design Pattern Toolkit that demonstrates code migration of VB forms (UI only) to Eclipse Rich Client Platform.
How does it work?
Compass/VB is comprised of the following main components:
- Visual Basic core analysis engine
- Internal model (Compass Model) - Populated with the analysis and assessment results
- Persistence data store - For storing and retrieving the Compass Model, implemented by an embedded Cloudscape database
- Knowledge base component - Contains domain expert information on migration issues and architectural classifications. The knowledge base is likely to be refined or enhanced with information as more experience is gathered in migration engagements
- User interface component - Enables the user to work with the tool and the results of the analyses
- Transformation component - Can apply transformation patterns on the Compass Model. The transformations are implemented using the IBM Design Pattern Toolkit (DPTK)
Availability
Version 1.0 of Compass/VB is available on the IBM alphaWorks site.