The language is actually relatively modern, it kept up with time (latest ISO version is from 2023), and there are even IDEs like Rocket Visual COBOL, granted not something that you might get on e.g. z/OS, but there are others.
It actually compiles to native code, it handles well its use case, batch processing business data, and despite everything less verbose than most agents markdown files I keep seeing.
Yes the risk is there, but it is also there for any kind of legacy application in enterprise scenarios, which is why most migrations fail.
I'll have to dive back in. I could use the decent salary right now. I've been out of work aside from my endeavors to bring this hoist to market we are working on currently. The whole formal verification thing has become an obsession of mine lately. First it was applied to just the safety-critical aspects of our system. Now, I am applying lesser, but still powerful methods and tools to make sure the whole front end and basic networking is also part of this formal verification chain. Down the rabbit hole!
Comments
The language is actually relatively modern, it kept up with time (latest ISO version is from 2023), and there are even IDEs like Rocket Visual COBOL, granted not something that you might get on e.g. z/OS, but there are others.
It actually compiles to native code, it handles well its use case, batch processing business data, and despite everything less verbose than most agents markdown files I keep seeing.
Yes the risk is there, but it is also there for any kind of legacy application in enterprise scenarios, which is why most migrations fail.
I'll have to dive back in. I could use the decent salary right now. I've been out of work aside from my endeavors to bring this hoist to market we are working on currently. The whole formal verification thing has become an obsession of mine lately. First it was applied to just the safety-critical aspects of our system. Now, I am applying lesser, but still powerful methods and tools to make sure the whole front end and basic networking is also part of this formal verification chain. Down the rabbit hole!
You might find the paper Verification for legacy programs by Michael Ernst useful - https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~mernst/pubs/legacy-verifica...
Also see Round-Trip Correctness: A New Metric for Generative AI-Based Process Modeling - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49033317