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[DISCUSS] IBM using LLMs to convert COBOL to Java (techcrunch.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by bahmanm@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.ml

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It's not the 1st time a language/tool will be lost to the annals of the job market, eg VB6 or FoxPro. Though previously all such cases used to happen gradually, giving most people enough time to adapt to the changes.

I wonder what's it going to be like this time now that the machine, w/ the help of humans of course, can accomplish an otherwise multi-month risky corporate project much faster? What happens to all those COBOL developer jobs?

Pray share your thoughts, esp if you're a COBOL professional and have more context around the implication of this announcement 🙏

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[–] IHeartBadCode@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

IBM hawks new conversion tools all the time. None of them are amazing sliver bullets, all of them require humans to comb over the resulting output. And every single one I’ve ever used chokes on any weird case.

From the RPG fixed form to free form, DDS to DDL conversion, and so on all of them are usually more trouble to use than to not use.

IBM does this kind of stuff all the time. And for some folks it’ll work some of the times. But at this point, I just skip any WS tool they put out and have a snippet on RDi and RDz that does all the required plugging away to call web services from the COBOL module.