5 ms·

COBOL gets new life in the cloud thanks to Watsonx and AI

41 points by rmason 3y ago

rmason 3y ago
Appears that the first programmers being replaced by AI will be Cobol developers as they have gotten too expensive due to their rarity.
- tapland 3y ago
  The language isn't hard, getting new devs that stay 15+ years to learn the ins and outs of systems that large is. We're making a push to get our cobol devs some kind of bonus foe sticking around because we can hire a ton of junior devs but after a few years only the ones nearing retirement are left.
  - worthless-trash 3y ago
    Can you talk more on this, as an older developer most of the cobol jobs that I have seen end up being underpaid for this stage in my life. What kind of 'ins and outs' are in this context ?
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Focus on distressed stuff, that's where the money is in COBOL.
      - cutler 3y ago
        "Distressed stuff"?
        jacquesm 3y ago
        Companies in a panic because some critical system broke / some critical system needs to be kept alive for a bit longer but all of the original people maintaining it have already left.
- LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
  I’d love to see AI take on some of these 50 year old COBOL monstrosities, partly because it’s desperately needed but also because I have little faith that AI is anywhere near sophisticated enough to undo half a century of bad programming decisions without going sideways.
  - troupo 3y ago
    > undo half a century of bad programming decisions without going sideways. I'd like to see AI manage to figure out 50 years of law and regulation changes and corner cases that have no documentation other than COBOL implementations.
Bostonian 3y ago
Searching "COBOL" by date yields many threads about Watsonx, including https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37223440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37223440 .
- layer8 3y ago
  Surprising that you had to do that search to find your own submission.
xwdv 3y ago
I learned COBOL only to find the real reason the engineers get paid so much to maintain systems is not really due to their rarity but rather their extensive decades of experience which I will never really have. A lot of new COBOL work just gets shipped off to India to be done cheaply.
- akokanka 3y ago
  It's not just Cobol that gets moved to India almost all dev is being moved there. When you get decent Devs for 45 buck's a day, there's no need in others.
  - michaelmrose 3y ago
    This is mathematically untrue as ought to be obvious by the mere fact that other devs exist. There are more work needing good devs than good devs in the world let alone just India thus even expensive labor finds a market.
    - heywhatupboys 3y ago
      This is cope. It is clear that software engineering in the high-paying West is moving out to India, Eastern Europe, Latin America. The days of the irreplacable, highly paid software engineer who does the bare minimum are over
      - michaelmrose 3y ago
        Why is there year on year more software developers in the US? When manufacturing jobs moved to China we didn't see manufacturing jobs increasing simultaneously in both markets. You invoke emotionalal thinking while my statements are purely factual. Show me your numbers.
        o1y32 3y ago
        More software developers in the US does not exclude the possibility that there are also more developers in India, actually even more than in the US. My company has a presence in India, and it is noticeable that the company in general is favoring hiring in the India -- entire teams gets built in India, and headcounts are first given to Indian teams and then US teams
xvilka 3y ago
See also a post about OCamlPro experience on migrating some COBOL projects to use GnuCOBOL[1]. [1] https://ocamlpro.com/blog/2023_03_18_autofonce/ https://ocamlpro.com/blog/2023_03_18_autofonce/
beej71 3y ago
I'm a little surprised that AI is the best way to approach this, as opposed to some kind of transpiler. I'd be more inclined to trust the latter for correctness.
- b800h 3y ago
  The transpilers I've seen have created some extraordinary Java. If you've experience of the COBOL "Data Division", imagine how that gets ported across to an object oriented language.. But I still agree with you. I've experience of a couple of COBOL migration projects, and I wouldn't want AI anywhere near it. The testing required is insane enough as it is, and the once-a-decade corner cases numerous enough for the idea of using AI on this to scare the bejeesus out of me. This is code that can still contain for-loops to slow down processing so the teleprinters can keep up...
  - winternewt 3y ago
    Well if nothing else, the AI could help you write more unit tests.
    - kazinator 3y ago
      Well, if nothing else, the AI could be slow enough that the teleprinters can keep up.
    - b800h 3y ago
      That's a good shout, actually.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    As side note, modern versions of ISO COBOL also supports OOP.
    - b800h 3y ago
      Hahah, I assume you've seen the OOP implementation? Quite a thing. I believe it was added when OOP was in fashion.
sgt101 3y ago
You can quite easily get GenAI to rewrite some code blocks from Cobol to Java. The issue is getting it to do it at scale and reliably. I think it's possible, but I think it's a 10 year research path. IBM will get folks to buy into this and then incrementally refine it for about 5 years. At that point they will start lagging the state of the art because they will stop investing. In about 10 years there will be various tools available from many vendors or opensource that will significantly automate it and we will call it solved. In reality there will be some niche jobs for folks to use the tools, and those folks will both work hard and get paid well.
tyingq 3y ago
Though many COBOL programs have large important bits that aren't in the code at all. Things like JCL, various batch schedulers, facilities like RACF, etc, can mean that porting the code only gets you part of the application.
0x445442 3y ago
This dove tails with the Programming as Theory thread; https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37263121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37263121. Even if the AI delivered on the task of converting the text from COBOL to Java, it’s not going to preserve the theory.
YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago
This is going to end in tears - of laughter or despair, I cannot predict. But tears nonetheless. COBOL code has typically gone through decades of bug-fixing and maintainance and is of industrial strength, just like the mainframe platforms it runs on, with reliability and uptimes that are insane compared to distributed, server-based systems. Replacing all that with java to run on servers is already a losing proposition. There's no way that Java on servers can reach the same reliability as COBOL on mainframes, even given some kind of perfect translation or transliteration between the two. Now, COBOL translated to Java by "AI", whatever that means for Watsonx (I think it means by "foundation models") is just asking for trouble. Trouble, note well, that translates to many millions of hard $$$ lost. This is going to end in tears.
theodpHN 3y ago
"IBM on Tuesday announced generative AI tools to help address that problem, modernizing antique mainframe software for the cloud by refactoring COBOL code to Java." Anyone else thinking, "Now they have two problems"? :-)

41 points by rmason 3y ago

Appears that the first programmers being replaced by AI will be Cobol developers as they have gotten too expensive due to their rarity.

tapland 3y ago
The language isn't hard, getting new devs that stay 15+ years to learn the ins and outs of systems that large is. We're making a push to get our cobol devs some kind of bonus foe sticking around because we can hire a ton of junior devs but after a few years only the ones nearing retirement are left.
- worthless-trash 3y ago
  Can you talk more on this, as an older developer most of the cobol jobs that I have seen end up being underpaid for this stage in my life. What kind of 'ins and outs' are in this context ?
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Focus on distressed stuff, that's where the money is in COBOL.
    - cutler 3y ago
      "Distressed stuff"?
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        Companies in a panic because some critical system broke / some critical system needs to be kept alive for a bit longer but all of the original people maintaining it have already left.
LapsangGuzzler 3y ago
I’d love to see AI take on some of these 50 year old COBOL monstrosities, partly because it’s desperately needed but also because I have little faith that AI is anywhere near sophisticated enough to undo half a century of bad programming decisions without going sideways.
- troupo 3y ago
  > undo half a century of bad programming decisions without going sideways. I'd like to see AI manage to figure out 50 years of law and regulation changes and corner cases that have no documentation other than COBOL implementations.

Bostonian 3y ago

Searching "COBOL" by date yields many threads about Watsonx, including https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37223440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37223440 .

layer8 3y ago
Surprising that you had to do that search to find your own submission.

xwdv 3y ago

I learned COBOL only to find the real reason the engineers get paid so much to maintain systems is not really due to their rarity but rather their extensive decades of experience which I will never really have. A lot of new COBOL work just gets shipped off to India to be done cheaply.

akokanka 3y ago
It's not just Cobol that gets moved to India almost all dev is being moved there. When you get decent Devs for 45 buck's a day, there's no need in others.
- michaelmrose 3y ago
  This is mathematically untrue as ought to be obvious by the mere fact that other devs exist. There are more work needing good devs than good devs in the world let alone just India thus even expensive labor finds a market.
  - heywhatupboys 3y ago
    This is cope. It is clear that software engineering in the high-paying West is moving out to India, Eastern Europe, Latin America. The days of the irreplacable, highly paid software engineer who does the bare minimum are over
    - michaelmrose 3y ago
      Why is there year on year more software developers in the US? When manufacturing jobs moved to China we didn't see manufacturing jobs increasing simultaneously in both markets. You invoke emotionalal thinking while my statements are purely factual. Show me your numbers.
      - o1y32 3y ago
        More software developers in the US does not exclude the possibility that there are also more developers in India, actually even more than in the US. My company has a presence in India, and it is noticeable that the company in general is favoring hiring in the India -- entire teams gets built in India, and headcounts are first given to Indian teams and then US teams

xvilka 3y ago

See also a post about OCamlPro experience on migrating some COBOL projects to use GnuCOBOL[1]. [1] https://ocamlpro.com/blog/2023_03_18_autofonce/ https://ocamlpro.com/blog/2023_03_18_autofonce/

beej71 3y ago

I'm a little surprised that AI is the best way to approach this, as opposed to some kind of transpiler. I'd be more inclined to trust the latter for correctness.

b800h 3y ago
The transpilers I've seen have created some extraordinary Java. If you've experience of the COBOL "Data Division", imagine how that gets ported across to an object oriented language.. But I still agree with you. I've experience of a couple of COBOL migration projects, and I wouldn't want AI anywhere near it. The testing required is insane enough as it is, and the once-a-decade corner cases numerous enough for the idea of using AI on this to scare the bejeesus out of me. This is code that can still contain for-loops to slow down processing so the teleprinters can keep up...
- winternewt 3y ago
  Well if nothing else, the AI could help you write more unit tests.
  - kazinator 3y ago
    Well, if nothing else, the AI could be slow enough that the teleprinters can keep up.
  - b800h 3y ago
    That's a good shout, actually.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  As side note, modern versions of ISO COBOL also supports OOP.
  - b800h 3y ago
    Hahah, I assume you've seen the OOP implementation? Quite a thing. I believe it was added when OOP was in fashion.

sgt101 3y ago

You can quite easily get GenAI to rewrite some code blocks from Cobol to Java. The issue is getting it to do it at scale and reliably. I think it's possible, but I think it's a 10 year research path. IBM will get folks to buy into this and then incrementally refine it for about 5 years. At that point they will start lagging the state of the art because they will stop investing. In about 10 years there will be various tools available from many vendors or opensource that will significantly automate it and we will call it solved. In reality there will be some niche jobs for folks to use the tools, and those folks will both work hard and get paid well.

tyingq 3y ago

Though many COBOL programs have large important bits that aren't in the code at all. Things like JCL, various batch schedulers, facilities like RACF, etc, can mean that porting the code only gets you part of the application.

0x445442 3y ago

This dove tails with the Programming as Theory thread; https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37263121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37263121. Even if the AI delivered on the task of converting the text from COBOL to Java, it’s not going to preserve the theory.

YeGoblynQueenne 3y ago

This is going to end in tears - of laughter or despair, I cannot predict. But tears nonetheless. COBOL code has typically gone through decades of bug-fixing and maintainance and is of industrial strength, just like the mainframe platforms it runs on, with reliability and uptimes that are insane compared to distributed, server-based systems. Replacing all that with java to run on servers is already a losing proposition. There's no way that Java on servers can reach the same reliability as COBOL on mainframes, even given some kind of perfect translation or transliteration between the two. Now, COBOL translated to Java by "AI", whatever that means for Watsonx (I think it means by "foundation models") is just asking for trouble. Trouble, note well, that translates to many millions of hard $$$ lost. This is going to end in tears.

theodpHN 3y ago

"IBM on Tuesday announced generative AI tools to help address that problem, modernizing antique mainframe software for the cloud by refactoring COBOL code to Java." Anyone else thinking, "Now they have two problems"? :-)