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

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127 points Anon84 | 2 comments | 03 Dec 23 16:31 UTC | HN request time: 0.558s | source
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tw04 ◴[03 Dec 23 17:20 UTC] No.38508735[source]▶
Plenty of folks know COBOL - the problem is you need to entice someone YOUNG to learn it, which basically means overpaying them. If I'm an 18-year-old why would I focus on learning a programming language that puts me in a job with 0 chance of advancement? Sure I'm irreplaceable to the company, but I've also only got a handful of other places I could go if they treat me poorly or sunset their mainframe.
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tobyjsullivan ◴[03 Dec 23 17:26 UTC] No.38508805[source]▶
I’d be curious to know how we’re defining “overpaying” here. These companies have effectively accrued 50+ years of technical debt (they could have migrated off COBOL decades ago). Meanwhile, based on my limited experience with these industries, I’d be surprised if they even offer market rates to new hires.
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1. exhilaration ◴[03 Dec 23 21:00 UTC] No.38510716[source]▶
The answer is India. Just Google India and COBOL, there's tons of schools teaching it. So if Watson doesn't work out for you, IBM is happy to sell you offshore consulting services the bridge the gap! This is all win-win for IBM -- you can can keep your $200 million mainframe service contract or hire IBM to (kinda? maybe?) move you to something more modern.
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2. nunez ◴[04 Dec 23 02:30 UTC] No.38513084[source]▶
Can confirm. When I was in Hyderabad in 2019, I saw signs for a few schools marketing COBOL and FORTRAN.