I purchased Web Connection several months ago. Is it just me or do others see a need for this code to be refactored? I have found so many variables, parameters and methods that aren't being used (at least not in useful ways) that I have been motivated to start making changes myself. Although, this is a big job. Rick, since you're the one profiting from the sale of Web Connection, when will you perform this much needed task? There is a lot of "dead wood" in Web Connection. Now, I don't mean to take away from the usefulness of the package, but the code could be significantly more efficient and understandable if it was refactored.
Hi Rob,
Not likely to happen...
This codebase is very old - it originated in 1994 and while there has been major refactoring of various pieces of the framework, as the framework as a whole has never been rebuilt from scratch.
There are many reasons for this, the main one being that this is basically a 'supported' producted at this point but not exactly actively developed. There's just not enough market here to support a large development effort any longer. I update things were it makes sense, in byte sized chunks as I can find the time, but making fundamental changes to the framework that would cause overall changes in the way it works are just not an option both in terms of code fraility, and the simple fact that there's a lot of legacy code that has to run on top of the framework with a reasonable level of backwards compatibility.
Rest assured, if I designed Web Connection today it would be a much leaner beast, but alas it's not a green field project that has to support 1000's of installed applications that run on top of it.
So, all that said. I'm open to discussion of specific things you want to point at, but a general call to 'refactor' the whole thing is not going to happen.
+++ Rick ---
Ok, thanks for the honest reply Rick.
FWIW, there's a lot of stuff you can filter out when you build your application by removing various included libraries in the WCONECT.H/WCONNECT_OVERRIDE.H settings using the various WWC_ flag settings. Look in wconnect.prg and see the various flags you can apply to remove features that you may not be using.
+++ Rick ---