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Ask HN: COBOL devs, how are AI coding affecting your work?

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Re: Ask HN: COBOL devs, how are AI coding affecting your work?

#91

Post by cies »

rubyfan wrote: post #86
BrouteMinou wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

with all those languages listed in this thread,it explains why I don't trust or use AI when I code. That's basically all the languages that I am using... For the AI fans in here, what languages are you using? Typescript only would be my guess?

Yeah that list has left me wondering, then what is it good at? HTML, CSS and JavaScript?

SQL. I learned a lot using it. It's really good and uses teh full potential of Postgres. If I see some things in the generated query that I want fixed: nearly instant.

Also: it gives great feedback on my schema designs.

So far SQL it's best. (comparing to JS/ HTML+Tailwind / Kotlin)

Re: Ask HN: COBOL devs, how are AI coding affecting your work?

#92

Post by MarkMarine »

kelvinjps10 wrote: post #84
Quothling wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is pretty bad at Python and Go as well. It depends a lot on who uses it though. We have a lot of non-developers who make things work with Python. A lot of it will never need a developer because it being bad doesn't matter for what it does. Some of it needs to be basically rewritten from scratch. Over all I think it's fine. I do love AI for writing yaml and bicep. I mean, it's completely terrible unless you prompt…

If it's bad at python the most popular language what language it's good at? If you see the other comments they're basically mentioning most programming languages

Pretty good at Java, the verbose language, strong type system, and strong static analysis tools that you can run on every edit combine to keep it on the tracks you define

Re: Ask HN: COBOL devs, how are AI coding affecting your work?

#93

Post by glhaynes »

Quothling wrote: post #45
deaddodo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI isn’t particularly great with C, Zig, or Rust either in my experience. It can certainly help with snippets of code and elucidate complex bitwise mathematics, and I’ll use it for those tedious tasks. And it’s a great research assistant, helping with referencing documentation. However, it’s gotten things wrong enough times that I’ve just lost trust in its ability to give me code I can’t review and confirm at a glanc…

AI is pretty bad at Python and Go as well. It depends a lot on who uses it though. We have a lot of non-developers who make things work with Python. A lot of it will never need a developer because it being bad doesn't matter for what it does. Some of it needs to be basically rewritten from scratch. Over all I think it's fine. I do love AI for writing yaml and bicep. I mean, it's completely terrible unless you prompt…

I'm not a Python programmer but I could've sworn I've repeatedly heard it said that LLMs are particularly good at writing Python.

Re: Ask HN: COBOL devs, how are AI coding affecting your work?

#94

Post by amarant »

xandrius wrote: post #61
hmaxwell wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like people who can't get AI to write production ready code are really bad at describing what they want done. The problem is that people want an LLM to one shot GTA6. When the average software developer prompts an LLM they expect 1) absolutely safe code 2) optimized/performant code 3) production ready code without even putting the requirements on credential/session handling. You need to prompt it like it's an…

Exactly this. Not sure what code other people who post here are writing but it cannot always and only be bleeding edge, fringe and incredible code. They don't seem to be able to get modern LLMs to produce decent/good code in Go or Rust, while I can prototype a new ESP32 which I've never seen fully in Rust and it can manage to solve even some edge cases which I can't find answers on dedicated forums.

I have a sneaking suspicion that AI use isn't as easy as it's made out to be. There certainly seem to be a lot of people who fail to use it effectively, while others have great success. That indicates either a luck or a skill factor. The latter seems more likely.

What are your secrets? Teach me the dark arts!

Re: Ask HN: COBOL devs, how are AI coding affecting your work?

#95

Post by antonvs »

fzzzy wrote: post #75
antonvs wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The weakness goes beyond lifetimes. In Rust programs with non-trivial type schemas, it can really struggle to get the types right. You see something similar with Haskell. Basically, proving non-trivial correctness properties globally is more difficult than just making a program work.

Luckily that's the compiler's job.

Yes, I was referring to writing the proofs, which is very much the human or LLM's job.

Re: Ask HN: COBOL devs, how are AI coding affecting your work?

#96

Post by pverheggen »

shevy-java wrote: post #72
0xCE0 wrote: post #13

I really wouldn't want any vibe-coded COBOL in my bank db/app logic...

How many banks really use COBOL? Here in central Europe it seems to be Java, Java, Java for the most part. Since many years actually.

In the US, there are several thousands of banks and credit unions, and the smaller ones use a patchwork of different vendor software. They likely don't have to write COBOL directly, but some of those components are still running it.

From the vendor's perspective, it doesn't make sense to do a complete rewrite and risk creating hairy financial issues for potentially hundreds of clients.

Re: Ask HN: COBOL devs, how are AI coding affecting your work?

#97

Post by deaddodo »

lopezb wrote: post #42
deaddodo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI isn’t particularly great with C, Zig, or Rust either in my experience. It can certainly help with snippets of code and elucidate complex bitwise mathematics, and I’ll use it for those tedious tasks. And it’s a great research assistant, helping with referencing documentation. However, it’s gotten things wrong enough times that I’ve just lost trust in its ability to give me code I can’t review and confirm at a glanc…

I can't comment on Zig and Rust, but C is one of the languages in which LLMs are best, in my opinion. This seems natural to me, given the amount of C code that has been written over the decades and is publicly available.

Definitely disagree. It can regurgitate solved problems from open source codebases, sure. Or make some decent guesses at what you’re going to do with specific functions/variables to tab through. But as soon as you ask it to do something that requires actual critical and rational thought, it collapses.

Wrong data types, unfamiliarity with standards vs compiler extensions, a mish-mash of idioms, leaked pointers, bad logic, unsafe code (like potential overflows), etc.

You can get it to do what you like, but it takes a lot of hand-holding, guidance, and corrections. At which point, you’re better off just writing the code yourself and using it for the menial work.

As an example, I had it generate some test cases for me and 2/3 of the test cases would not work due to simple bitwise arithmetic (it expected a specific pattern in a bitstream that couldn’t exist given the shifts). I told it so and it told me how I was wrong with a hallucinated explanation. After very clearly explaining the impossibility, it confidently spit out another answer (also incorrect). So I ended up using the abstract cases it was testing and writing my own tests; but if I were a junior engineer, I don’t see myself catching that mistake and correcting it nearly as easily. Instead wasting time wondering what is wrong with my code.

Re: Ask HN: COBOL devs, how are AI coding affecting your work?

#98

Post by alexpham14 »

Compliance is usually the hard stop before we even get to capability. We can’t send code out, and local models are too heavy to run on the restricted VDI instances we’re usually stuck with. Even when I’ve tried it on isolated sandbox code, it struggles with the strict formatting. It tends to drift past column 72 or mess up period termination in nested IFs. You end up spending more time linting the output than it takes to just type it. It’s decent for generating test data, but it doesn't know the forty years of undocumented business logic quirks that actually make the job difficult.

Re: Ask HN: COBOL devs, how are AI coding affecting your work?

#99

Post by yojo »

BrouteMinou wrote: post #79
Quothling wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is pretty bad at Python and Go as well. It depends a lot on who uses it though. We have a lot of non-developers who make things work with Python. A lot of it will never need a developer because it being bad doesn't matter for what it does. Some of it needs to be basically rewritten from scratch. Over all I think it's fine. I do love AI for writing yaml and bicep. I mean, it's completely terrible unless you prompt…

with all those languages listed in this thread,it explains why I don't trust or use AI when I code. That's basically all the languages that I am using... For the AI fans in here, what languages are you using? Typescript only would be my guess?

I use it in a Python/TS codebase (series D B2B SaaS with some AI agent features). It can usually “make it work” in one shot, but the code often requires cleanup.

I start every new feature w/Claude Code in plan mode. I give it the first step, point it to relevant source files, and tell it to generate a plan. I go catch up on my Slack messages.

I check back in and iterate on the plan until I’m happy, then tell it to implement.

I go to a team meeting.

I come back and review all the code. Anything I don’t 100% understand I ask Gemini to explain. I cross-check with primary sources if it’s important.

I tweak the generated code by hand (faster than talking with the agent), then switch back to plan mode and ask for specific tests. I almost always need to clean up the tests for doing way too much manual setup, despite a lot of Claude.md instructions to the contrary.

In the end, I probably get the work done in 30% less wall-clock time of Claude implementing (counting plan time), but I’m also doing other things while the agent crunches. Maybe 50% speed boost in total productivity? I also learn something new on about a third of features, which is way more than I did before.

Re: Ask HN: COBOL devs, how are AI coding affecting your work?

#100

Post by madeofpalk »

BrouteMinou wrote: post #79
Quothling wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is pretty bad at Python and Go as well. It depends a lot on who uses it though. We have a lot of non-developers who make things work with Python. A lot of it will never need a developer because it being bad doesn't matter for what it does. Some of it needs to be basically rewritten from scratch. Over all I think it's fine. I do love AI for writing yaml and bicep. I mean, it's completely terrible unless you prompt…

with all those languages listed in this thread,it explains why I don't trust or use AI when I code. That's basically all the languages that I am using... For the AI fans in here, what languages are you using? Typescript only would be my guess?

> why I don't trust or use AI when I code

These are two different concepts. I use AI when coding, but I don't trust it. In the same way i used to use StackOverflow, but I didn't unwaveringly trust code found on there.

I still need to test and make sure the code does the thing I wanted it to do.

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