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>> This would really useful if it worked with legacy code. For example, you could migrate all that COBOL code into Java or Python, or all the Fortran scientific
by YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
>> This would really useful if it worked with legacy code. For example, you could migrate all that COBOL code into Java or Python, or all the Fortran scientific code into C++ or Python.
Having done a year-long stint at a mainframe team in one of the large financial corps (no, bigger than that) I can assure you that this is never going to happen for COBOL-to-java (or to-anything) unless there are strong guarantees of 100% correctness. See, one of the first things they tell you when you join a COBOL team is that you don't touch the code, unless you've filed a form that explains every detail of the change you want to make and why. In the team I worked for, that was a 10+ page Word form that would put a herd of elephants to sleep with its obstinacy and recalcitrance.
And that was only to change some JCL scripts- the scripts that run the COBOL jobs. Nobody dares to change now 50-years old COBOL code. Because every time they do, the corp loses millions. So I was told by those who knew better than me, and had been doing that job all their lives.
Bottom line, until someone figures out how to transform a gigantic, half a century-old COBOL codebase into java without breaking nothing at all, there's not gon' be any migrations.
I get a feeling that the requirements for scientific code are going to be much looser, and that this is going to cause a whole lot of mayhem, on the other hand.