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Watsonx: IBM's code assistant for turning COBOL into Java

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127 points Anon84 | 3 comments | 03 Dec 23 16:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.635s | source
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jalk ◴[03 Dec 23 17:24 UTC] No.38508782[source]▶
There seems to be plenty of cobol transpilers - anybody know why they can’t use those. Immediate thought was it’s just beating on the dead Watson horse.
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kjs3 ◴[03 Dec 23 17:39 UTC] No.38508946[source]▶
If they worked as effectively as they were touted, they'd have cleared out the cobol.
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1. pixl97 ◴[03 Dec 23 18:09 UTC] No.38509273[source]▶
No really, in fact I'd say the opposite.

The issue with COBOL is any old idiot can't write it. If someone is touching the COBOL they are going in and making minor changes/expansions to an application that is older than the average HN user and those changes and expectations are well defined.

With Java and/or language of the day your cheapest run of the mill contractor given exceptionally poor instructions will crank out X LOC per day where X is the required output for them to keep their job. Maintaining that code will be some other bastards problem.

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2. kjs3 ◴[03 Dec 23 20:10 UTC] No.38510310[source]▶
I have no idea how that's the opposite of what I said. Transpilers haven't worked not because of how much or little the replacements are paid, or how well they do their job, but because there's more to moving from one computational ecosystem to another than just the language.
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3. grammie ◴[03 Dec 23 22:21 UTC] No.38511330[source]▶
Correct, language transpilation is the easy bit, ensuring that execution and behavoir is the same as on the mainframe is tough, but also solved.