IBM taps AI to translate COBOL code to Java | TechCrunch
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IBM's new product offering, Code Assistant for IBM Z, leverages a generative AI model to translate COBOL code to Java.

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 🙏

  • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
    161·
    1 year ago

    ChatGPT did an amazing job converting my Neovim config from VimScript to Lua including explaining each part and how it was different. That was a very well scoped piece of code though. I’d be interested to see how an LLM goes on large projects as I imagine that would be a whole different level of complexity. You need to understand a lot more about the components and interactions and be very careful not to change behaviour. Security is another important thing that was already mentioned in this thread and the article itself.

    I put my self as doubtful but really interested to see the results nonetheless. I’ve already been surprised a few times over by these things so who knows.