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

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

#151

Post by fbdab103 »

wokkel wrote: post #118
spindle wrote: post #101

I believe that practically the whole barrier to getting rid of legacy COBOL systems is testing the replacement system. Of course it's possible but it's very very expensive ... I don't have numbers for how expensive, but I've worked on financial software in COBOL on a mainframe, and nothing was the least bit abstruse or scary or difficult about it except the worry that our test suite might not be comprehensive, no mat…

No, getting a 100% equivalent working Java system is trivial. But the goal is having something that looks like it was Java from the start not Java as written by a cobol expert. So proper use of classes. Not al globals. Sensible naming etc. The real cost is in maintenance of the code: having in idiomatic Java could help. Translating to idiomatic Java is very hard

I think those companies would kiss you on the mouth and do any unspeakable acts you requested were you able to promise a 100% equivalent system in Java. There is a ton of industry experience in turning working-but-trash Java into something more maintainable.

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

#152

Post by snotrockets »

jacquesm wrote: post #130
phasetransition wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Son of a COBOL dev... All this virtualization mess, minus the extra Java layer, started back in the 90s, courtesy of Unisys. I remember my dad pulling his hair out when I was in High School, though I did not understand why back then.

I think you get it now though. I've seen this whole industry up close for the last 40 years or so and it's absolutely incredible how we went from a machine with 32 M of RAM and 300 M of storage sufficient to serve 1400 branch offices of a bank to a phone with a very large multiple of that, that can barely serve a single user.

That phone does a lot more than the bank mainframe used to do.

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

#153

Post by dr_kiszonka »

Stratoscope wrote: post #86

One correction on the article: "watsonx" (yes, with a lowercase "w" - ugh) is an umbrella brand for several of IBM's "AI" related products. The actual product name for this one is "watsonx Code Assistant for Z", as the author could have found with a simple web search: https://www.google.com/search?q=watsonx+cobol+java https://newsroom.ibm.com/2023-08-22-IBM-Unveils-watsonx-Gene... Disclosure: I work for IBM in "watso…

How do you like the job? (Just curious, no relation with or friends at IBM.)

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

#154

Post by Exoristos »

nunez wrote: post #136

Literally today I was checking out of a rental car center and the checkout person loaded up an emulated green screen mainframe program to complete the process. I know for sure that Avis's reservation system runs on mainframe. To me, that means that the business logic of rental car checkout and return is so complicated and/or nuanced, it is cheaper for rental car companies to find/retain mainframe developers to keep t…

It's cheaper to threaten their families.

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

#155

Post by dr_kiszonka »

stonogo wrote: post #82
high_5 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... Having no COBOL devs left is a better one? What's the alternative then?

There are plenty of COBOL devs; they're just not in the American labor market.

Would bumping starting salaries for Cobol devs to 150k, resolve it in the US? (I am assuming banks could afford it.)

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

#156

Post by noduerme »

jacquesm wrote: post #140
noduerme wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech debt is can come from risk adversity or from taking risks on new shiny things. I think you're right that as long as technology is a moving target, it's always going to be there. To me, the trick is not cornering yourself in a situation where your whole ecosystem is essentially abandoned and not rewriting for the sake of chasing the latest craze. That means parallel re-development, from scratch, of all the existi…

That makes perfect sense. Extra points if you designed the system to be replaced in time.

Hahah. The last one was a close call, since the entire front end of the system from 2009-2020 was a responsive single page app written in Actionscript 3, to replace the old PHP page system... but we saw the deadline looming about a year in advance and accelerated it.

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

#157

Post by snotrockets »

tootie wrote: post #135
grammie wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heirloom computing where I am cto does this using transpilers with 100% automated transpilation. Using LLMs for an entirely deterministic domain borders on the insane. This is just marketing bs but we get asked about it and what our plan is to counter it all the time. Explaining that using Gen-ai and LLMs for what is a well understood compiler/transpiler problem that is already solved just seems to be too difficult f…

It's almost sad. Watson defeated Ken Jennings at Jeopardy 12 years ago and today IBM are nowhere in the AI race. They bet the farm on the exact right domain ahead of the competition and still failed.

IBM are very good at doing that.

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

#158

Post by g805 »

snotrockets wrote: post #152
jacquesm wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you get it now though. I've seen this whole industry up close for the last 40 years or so and it's absolutely incredible how we went from a machine with 32 M of RAM and 300 M of storage sufficient to serve 1400 branch offices of a bank to a phone with a very large multiple of that, that can barely serve a single user.

That phone does a lot more than the bank mainframe used to do.

"Busy" and "useful" are entirely different things. Maybe all that extra capability would be better spent elsewhere.

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

#159

Post by Kwpolska »

rini17 wrote: post #35
tw04 wrote: post #4

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.

How do you decide which language has better chances for advancement anyway? Pick some hot bleeding edge Microsoft tech instead and learn it only to get obsolete in few years. You will have to eventually relearn regardless what you pick. And I can't believe having some COBOL in the CV will be an issue for anybody.

COBOL is one end of the spectrum, hot bleeding edge tech is another. Pick a mature yet modern stack and it should be fine for longer.

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

#160

Post by Kwpolska »

nunez wrote: post #136

Literally today I was checking out of a rental car center and the checkout person loaded up an emulated green screen mainframe program to complete the process. I know for sure that Avis's reservation system runs on mainframe. To me, that means that the business logic of rental car checkout and return is so complicated and/or nuanced, it is cheaper for rental car companies to find/retain mainframe developers to keep t…

I doubt the rental car system is complex. It was probably written decades ago and is now complete and bug-free. Keeping it running on a mainframe with emulated terminals is far cheaper than a modern rewrite, and the age/maintainability of their software is the least of their concerns.
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