this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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[DISCUSS] IBM using LLMs to convert COBOL to Java (techcrunch.com)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by bahmanm@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.ml
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It's not the 1st time a language/tool will be lost to the annals of the job market, eg VB6 or FoxPro. Though previously all such cases used to happen gradually, giving most people enough time to adapt to the changes.

I wonder what's it going to be like this time now that the machine, w/ the help of humans of course, can accomplish an otherwise multi-month risky corporate project much faster? What happens to all those COBOL developer jobs?

Pray share your thoughts, esp if you're a COBOL professional and have more context around the implication of this announcement 🙏

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[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

according to a 2022 survey, there’s over 800 billion lines of COBOL in use on production systems, up from an estimated 220 billion in 2017

That doesn't sound right at all. How could the amount of COBOL code in use quadruple at a time when everyone is trying to phase it out?

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Because it’s not actually getting phased out in reality

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

But it isn't getting quadrupled either, at least because there aren't enough COBOL programmers in the world to write that much new code that quickly.

[–] RobotDrZaius@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

It doesn’t say unique lines of code.

[–] eyy@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago

That doesn’t sound right at all. How could the amount of COBOL code in use quadruple at a time when everyone is trying to phase it out?

Because why they're trying, they need to keep adding business logic to it constantly. Spaghetti code on top of spaghetti code.

[–] kitonthenet@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

It could mean anything, the same code used in production in new ways, slightly modified code, newly discovered cobol where the original language was a mystery, new requirements for old systems, seriously it could be too many things for that to be a useful metric with no context

[–] RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

Maybe some production systems were replicated at some point and they're adding those as unique lines?

[–] BudgieMania@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

trying

That's the keyword right there. Everyone wants to phase mainframe shenanigans out until they get told about the investments necessary to do it, then they are happy to just survive with it.

I'm currently at a company that's actually trying it and it's being a pain

[–] JWBananas@startrek.website 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The 2022 survey accounted for code that the 2017 survey missed?

[–] ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

I think it's more likely that one survey or the other (or both) are simply nonsense.