IBM’s generative AI tool aims to refactor ancient COBOL code for its mainframes
There are hundreds of billions of lines of COBOL code running on production systems worldwide. That's not ideal for a language over 60 years old and whose primary architects are mostly retired or dead.
IBM, eager to keep those legacy functions on its Z mainframe systems, wants that code rewritten in Java. It tried getting humans to do it a few years back, but now it has another idea. Yes, you guessed it: It's putting AI on the job.
The IBM watsonx Code Assistant, slated to be available in Q4 this year, intends to keep humans in the mix, but with a push from generative AI in analyzing, refactoring, and testing the new object-oriented code. It's not an all-or-nothing process, either, as IBM claims that watsonx-generated code should be interoperable with COBOL and certain Z mainframe functions.
This might be one of those cases where using AI" actually makes sense and can be a meaningful tool for the relatively few COBOL programmers left trying to modernise COBOL codebases. I'm obviously not well-versed enough in any of this to make any objective statements, but it seems to make sense.