In theory, it wouldn't be a necessarily bad idea to port the COBOL code to something more modern, but I cannot trust Muskrat and a few vibe coder youngsters with this task.
this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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Bro. Check it out bro, we're gonna like make it this dope Electron app, bro. It'll interface with X, bro and everyone will have to login there to get their money, bro. Don't worry tho, you'll get paid in recession-proof Trumpbux crypto currency as long as you claim it in time. But X gets a fee of 60% bro.
Seriously bro we like hired a bunch of grads that took a one week X created code boot camp that like you know revolved around a language big balls created called "cyber coin purse++". On second thought bro we're rewriting it in that. Should be like 2 weeks to rewrite it cuz old people wrote the current code and they're like old or whatever bro. Like I live in an old person's basement and they're just like old, bro.
in theory yeah it's not a bad idea but it's also 60 million lines of a cobol
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"ROFL"
Signed, everyone who has been involved in migrating a codebase before.
That is the mother load of all code bases. Probably still some COBOL if not mostly cobol.
They have an experienced team of teenagers don't worry.
Okay but have you ever tried just throwing genAI at the problem and not caring about the consequences?
With Grok looking more and more like the only one working for Musk with enough (digital) balls to stand up to his boss, that might be better than the alternative of "Big Balls" and the rest of the Digital Oblivous Goons of Elon
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Yep, months is a joke, doubly so when talking about tens of millions of lines of code and also COBOL specifically.
This is going to be a hilarious disaster but not so hilarious when people who need the benefits need them and won't be able to get them.
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I've worked on teams converting legacy code for most of my life. The planning for something like this would take longer than six months.
If this proceeds in Trump's corrupt government, Elon will get the contract, will claim it is too broken to salvage, and will privatize it. The only way this goes anywhere is if Trump and musk stand to gain money, and they stand to gain a lot.
If they planned a 1 month migration of a small component, 6 months to complete would be pretty lucky imo. Refactoring Legacy Code mentions the 2.0 approach they're taking. Spoiler alert, it doesn't work...
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I'm sure having a corrupt non-government narcissist rewrite the code for SS will be fine. It's not like he could leave any code hidden in there for his own purposes, like controlling or redirecting payments or anything.
Hey asshole - it works - don't fix it.
~~risking~~ guaranteeing
Is it a “risk” if it’s the desired outcome?