GrapeCity's engineering team has shared their journey of automating code conversion between Java and .NET for GcExcel, a server-side spreadsheet component. Initially, the team manually maintained two separate codebases, leading to synchronization issues and duplicated effort. They developed an automated pipeline that converts Java code to C# while preserving business logic and handling language-specific idioms. The post covers key challenges such as type system differences, API compatibility, and testing strategies for ensuring behavioral equivalence across platforms. This case study is particularly valuable for engineering teams maintaining dual-platform libraries or considering cross-platform code generation. The approach demonstrates how to reduce maintenance overhead while ensuring feature parity between Java and .NET versions.
An engineering case study on automating Java-to-.NET code conversion for a dual-platform spreadsheet component, addressing synchronization challenges and testing strategies.