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A COBOL programmer explains that this migration is impossible without catastrophe unless they want to destroy social security.
(lemmy.world)
this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2025
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Even if the plan it not to touch the COBOL code and replace the whole system with a new one written from scratch, a timeline of several years would be incompetently naive. Proposing to do it in months is just idiotic. [software dev, 40 yrs exp)
This needs months of PLANING, let alone development, then double the time for testing.
You don't need planning when you're Vibe coding 👌
skibidi, fam. throw that rizz on 💯
Don't forget to add time for reorgs and launch events.
The smart way to do it would be to develop a system in parallel and have it "shadow" the real system, doing all the same calculations and transactions and seeing if it comes up with the same results. Any time it doesn't, that's a bug that needs to be fixed.
You could probably get a system that got 90% of the way there in maybe 5 years. The other 10% is going to take at least another decade.
The problem is that vulnerable people depend on the existing system, and sometimes on what might be considered to be "bugs" in that system. A thoughtful process would have to find a way to ease them into a new system, or to grandfather their cases in and let them keep benefits until they died. But, with DOGE asshats in charge, they'll just treat a few old people losing their homes or starving to death to be just a small cost to be paid in the quest to become more "efficient".