4 ms·

I wonder what 1 million lines of COBOL translated to Java looks like. Let us stop and give some caring thoughts to the people who will maintain that code base.

Teckla 7y ago
There are commercial COBOL compilers available that compile to Java bytecode.
- le-mark 7y ago
  It's an odd phenomenon I've seen before. For some reason, execs think they need Java. I had one guy say that customers didn't want to hear cobol; so for him there was a marketing component. Otherwise, I think a lot of execs buy into the "cobol develoepers are rare and expensive" myth also put forth by this article. It's false; after 20 years of offshoring, there are 10,000s of unemployed cobol developers in the US. The shortage is cobol domain experts who wrote the original app, and who's jobs were offshored. That's the shortage. Certainly there are cobol to jvm bytecode options and I'm sure they see some use. One other option I haven't seen yet is cobol to an intermediate DSL in Java that legacy developers could use and code with little trouble, Jobol if you will. This doesn't exist that I know of.
  - dwild 7y ago
    > 10,000s of unemployed cobol developers in the US. You need to find that Cobol developper, that can work at your office, that will still works for at least the next 10 years, that won't ask a ton of cash because he expect to keep a similar salary as he did before, that is actually competent, etc... In the other hands, you got 10 000 unemployed java developer that get out of school in less than 500 km around your office, every year, that will do the job nicely for a pretty cheap salary because it's their first job.
    - PorterDuff 7y ago
      Aha. That's why they keep inventing new languages.
      - givehimagun 7y ago
        A fun fact - Java is over 23 years old. Don't know if anyone would call Java "new" anymore.
        JoeSmithson 7y ago
        It's actually almost the same amount of time C-to-Java as Java-to-now.
        salty_biscuits 7y ago
        Like just like stegosaurus and t-rex
        js8 7y ago
        And same amount of time Cobol-to-C?
        rtkwe 7y ago
        C started in 1972 so no. Cobol is close but was only 13 years between it's appearance and C.
      - granshaw 7y ago
        In all seriousness, I think there’s a ton of waste involving languages - each language introduces its own package manager, doesn’t interop with other languages meaning you have to rewrite python’s requests library in #newlanguage2019 etc
      - lalos 7y ago
        Just like a fancy new javascript framework that get propped up by big companies. Can't have experienced developers if the framework is brand new!
tanilama 7y ago
> Rather than simply transliterating source COBOL code to target Java code, the tool executes a mature automated conversion and refactoring process by first constructing a comprehensive Intermediate Object Model of the legacy system in an intermediate translation language. > Once modeled within the tool engine, SMEs employ an iterative process of applying rules and tuning to output the transformed code into the target Java language. Seems like they manually construct an IR of the source system, then translate the IR to Java Code. Automatically transpiling COBOL code to Java will lose all possibility of maintenance moving forward. So it is not considered in the first place, nor it is what they need. They need a semi-auto REWRITE of their legacy system, not just target it to Java.
LrnByTeach 7y ago
what would have been the total cost of this whole conversion effort COBOL to JAVA system? even if it $100 millions, it seems a successful project , given DoD mentioned potential savings of $25 millions/year >Customer Benefits > For the DoD, the component has been transformed from an expensive mainframe COBOL legacy system to an affordable, modern maintainable Java-based system. All valuable existing business rules have been preserved in the modernized system, while development, test, and production environments were migrated to AWS providing flexibility at reduced cost. >The DoD’s projected cost savings is $25 million per year, and they are now able to use popular Java programmers to maintain and enhance the critical component.

Teckla 7y ago

There are commercial COBOL compilers available that compile to Java bytecode.

le-mark 7y ago
It's an odd phenomenon I've seen before. For some reason, execs think they need Java. I had one guy say that customers didn't want to hear cobol; so for him there was a marketing component. Otherwise, I think a lot of execs buy into the "cobol develoepers are rare and expensive" myth also put forth by this article. It's false; after 20 years of offshoring, there are 10,000s of unemployed cobol developers in the US. The shortage is cobol domain experts who wrote the original app, and who's jobs were offshored. That's the shortage. Certainly there are cobol to jvm bytecode options and I'm sure they see some use. One other option I haven't seen yet is cobol to an intermediate DSL in Java that legacy developers could use and code with little trouble, Jobol if you will. This doesn't exist that I know of.
- dwild 7y ago
  > 10,000s of unemployed cobol developers in the US. You need to find that Cobol developper, that can work at your office, that will still works for at least the next 10 years, that won't ask a ton of cash because he expect to keep a similar salary as he did before, that is actually competent, etc... In the other hands, you got 10 000 unemployed java developer that get out of school in less than 500 km around your office, every year, that will do the job nicely for a pretty cheap salary because it's their first job.
  - PorterDuff 7y ago
    Aha. That's why they keep inventing new languages.
    - givehimagun 7y ago
      A fun fact - Java is over 23 years old. Don't know if anyone would call Java "new" anymore.
      - JoeSmithson 7y ago
        It's actually almost the same amount of time C-to-Java as Java-to-now.
        salty_biscuits 7y ago
        Like just like stegosaurus and t-rex
        js8 7y ago
        And same amount of time Cobol-to-C?
        rtkwe 7y ago
        C started in 1972 so no. Cobol is close but was only 13 years between it's appearance and C.
    - granshaw 7y ago
      In all seriousness, I think there’s a ton of waste involving languages - each language introduces its own package manager, doesn’t interop with other languages meaning you have to rewrite python’s requests library in #newlanguage2019 etc
    - lalos 7y ago
      Just like a fancy new javascript framework that get propped up by big companies. Can't have experienced developers if the framework is brand new!

tanilama 7y ago

> Rather than simply transliterating source COBOL code to target Java code, the tool executes a mature automated conversion and refactoring process by first constructing a comprehensive Intermediate Object Model of the legacy system in an intermediate translation language. > Once modeled within the tool engine, SMEs employ an iterative process of applying rules and tuning to output the transformed code into the target Java language. Seems like they manually construct an IR of the source system, then translate the IR to Java Code. Automatically transpiling COBOL code to Java will lose all possibility of maintenance moving forward. So it is not considered in the first place, nor it is what they need. They need a semi-auto REWRITE of their legacy system, not just target it to Java.

LrnByTeach 7y ago

what would have been the total cost of this whole conversion effort COBOL to JAVA system? even if it $100 millions, it seems a successful project , given DoD mentioned potential savings of $25 millions/year >Customer Benefits > For the DoD, the component has been transformed from an expensive mainframe COBOL legacy system to an affordable, modern maintainable Java-based system. All valuable existing business rules have been preserved in the modernized system, while development, test, and production environments were migrated to AWS providing flexibility at reduced cost. >The DoD’s projected cost savings is $25 million per year, and they are now able to use popular Java programmers to maintain and enhance the critical component.