7 ms·

Elon Musk's DOGE team may need a crash course in COBOL

45 points by rbc 2y ago

ronbenton 2y ago
The problem isn't that they don't know COBOL. The problem is they're not asking questions about things they don't understand. That's very dangerous in legacy code environments.
- dpc_01234 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - ronbenton 2y ago
    >How many years do I need to wait for Twitter to collapse any moment now, because Musk fired all the "irreplaceable" people? To be fair, usage has likely dropped commensurate with staffing! >These government systems by necessity are not very complex I don't believe this is correct. CMS has a bunch of their source code on their website. The COBOL parts are quite expansive and there is probably a whole lot more out there: https://www.cms.gov/PricerSourceCodeSoftware https://www.cms.gov/PricerSourceCodeSoftware Look, I have no issue with wanting to modernize government systems. An organization I used to idolize, the US Digital Service, did this as their full time gig... and most of them were just axed. I'm not sure a few 19 year olds are going to do better than this organization. It's hard work.
    - dpc_01234 2y ago
      > To be fair, usage has likely dropped commensurate with staffing! The profit, which is what actually matters is up. > I'm not sure a few 19 year olds are going to do better than this organization. It's hard work. The problem was never technical. Ever tried to get stuff done in a bloated corporation full of incompetent people that just want to keep their jobs and don't want you to expose how relatively incompetent they are, especially the management? Things that a competent engineer in a startup could do in a day, are impossible to do. And in a government it's probably 1000-fold so. Dumping some data from legacy system to a modern one is not a problem. The problem is firing people that can't deal with change. "You don't know what you're doing. Everything is sooo complex. You're going to break it. I've been doing it for 50 years, I know what's right."
      - jkubicek 2y ago
        > Dumping some data from legacy system to a modern one is not a problem. Dumping data from some legacy system to a modern one is a MASSIVE problem. Extremely well paid and experienced software engineers regularly hose their infra migrating from one system to another, and it's a near certainty that these commercial products don't have the complexity of of the whatever critical US Government system these kids from DOGE are mucking about in.
      - rstuart4133 2y ago
        > The profit, which is what actually matters is up. Citation needed. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/ https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/ Given revenue is been steadily dropping since Musk purchased it and is now down to 2014 levels (roughly 1/10th of it's peak year, which is the year before Musk bought it) and it is burdened by huge amounts of debt, it would be impressive indeed if it was making a profit.
  - fzeroracer 2y ago
    > These government systems by necessity are not very complex, because the hardware at the time did not have capacity for anything too complex. This is possibly one of the most absurd takes I've read on HN in a while. I'm imagining someone trying to learn how a PC game programmed in Assembly works going 'how hard could it be, PCs in the 90s weren't that complex'
    - ronbenton 2y ago
      I'm always interested in hearing people out, but these legacy COBOL codebases are massive, complex behemoths. Certainly eyebrow-raising to hear someone say they are not complex.
      - winocm 2y ago
        Don't forget F77 codebases too.
      - dpc_01234 2y ago
        "Massive", "behemoths". The same words you'll hear when you ask a man about their manhood, or their biggest catch. First hand source, so must be true. I also trust government workers to give fair representation of their work. And what you SWE write on their resumes or what OKRs when filling time to justify paycheck. :D They're a couple of database "tables" and formulas, what else they would supposed to be, think about it. They might be archaic, they might gnarly, limited etc. but they are no match for a modern next.js with react, in a docker container on a VM, running in a AWS datacenter, managed by Terraform, yadaydayda...
        strangecasts 2y ago
        They're not complex in the Big O sense, they are complex systems in the sense that they have to incorporate and reconcile organizational knowledge from very different domains - e.g. Ron Jeffries' "Why Is Payroll Hard" http://wiki.c2.com/?WhyIsPayrollHard http://wiki.c2.com/?WhyIsPayrollHard - while working in a predictable fashion with implicit requirements on availability and consistency, which the average web app stack more often than not leaves as "someone else's problem"
  - coffeefirst 2y ago
    > These government systems by necessity are not very complex, because the hardware at the time did not have capacity for anything too complex I'm guessing you haven't met anyone who's actually worked on any of these system.
  - ipaddr 2y ago
    Didn't twitter already collapse now valued at single digit billions. The loss of traffic helped with the reduced headcount efforts. You don't need 80% of employees with 80% less dollars earned.
    - dpc_01234 2y ago
      > In 2024, X (formerly Twitter) reported profits of $1.25 billion, which is about double its highest previous profit of $682 million in 2021. People believing what they want to belive. Not to mention that you talk about revenue and users, because it's hard to deny that technically Twitter is still working just fine, and now even has some new features, while in the past they were coasting tweaking their html for years. On this very websites, all the "experts" in the industry were bidding how quickly Twitter will collapse after Musk fired all these "irreplaceable" people. Same ones that after 15 year still don't understand how Bitcoin works, or how it can have beneficial impact on the energy market.
      - verzali 2y ago
        $1.25bn is EBITDA not profit. Revenue is down by about 50% since 2021.
      - penjelly 2y ago
        Twitter revenue is down 48% since musk acquisition, also due to interest and other costs they operated at a net loss in 2024, Not a profit. Who is really choosing what they want to believe?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
minimaxir 2y ago
I tested it and it turns out LLMs can follow commands such as "Port the following Python code to COBOL", although it's certainly harder to validate the output is correct.
- croes 2y ago
  It's useless to port the code if you don't understand the data.
- lowlevel 2y ago
  No need to check. It isn't.
- YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
  You don't understand. Your COBOL code may be 99.99999% right and still cause millions of dollars to vanish :poof: in a flash. If the DOGE team have this bright idea of getting an LLM to mess with the COBOL on mainframes there is going to be widespread chaos beyond human imagination.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - ttyprintk 2y ago
    Or, payments during an emergency. Say, avian flu.
- minimaxir 2y ago
  (to be clear this is most definitely not an endorsement of this approach, but you know DOGE is going to try it anyways)
- mek6800d2 2y ago
  You're porting in the WRONG direction. The existing COBOL code is undoubtedly using system utilities such as database management systems, etc. on the mainframe computers. And I doubt that you've written Python code that smoothly integrates into that system environment and just needs to be ported to COBOL. And I doubt that the mini-Musks can do so. (I'm not including the massive application-specific knowledge that you and they would or should need to grasp before attempting to insert code into the system.)
9front 2y ago
"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as criminal offense" Edsger Dijkstra, 1975.
mrbombastic 2y ago
Maybe this is a dumb question, but why would they have to make changes to cobol at all if there stated goal is to reduce spending? Wouldn’t it be more like figure out the outflows and just auditing spending and then turning some off?
- cowboylowrez 2y ago
  they're operating under a department created by Obama to improve software, so while the department musk is "running" has wildly different goals than the original department did, I'm thinking dorking with software is the ONLY leverage they have. Unfortunately for the country, we use lots of software lol insert sad trombone sound here If it were an honest attempt to reduce spending, wouldn't it happen in congress?
6510 2y ago
If you remove everyone who says it cant be done from the room you are left with people who all think it is possible. (hahaha)
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  That's pretty much what the guy in charge of the Titan sub said.
  - GoToRO 2y ago
    Well, they DID dive...
Gee101 2y ago
Musk runs companies where software mistakes can kill people. I would give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to software.
- elonistheworst 2y ago
  Musk runs a company that makes a product called "Full Self Driving" that cannot safely or legally be used for full self driving, and has therefore injured hundreds and killed north of 50 people. Under no circumstances should be be given the benefit of the doubt with anyone's safety, finances, or wellbeing.
  - tmn 2y ago
    This is a kind of weird rationalization where the conclusion leads the interpretation of the facts. It’s hard to get away from the fact that space x and Tesla deal with critical systems. And by most accounts, they’ve pushed things forward
    - croes 2y ago
      Yes, and they studied and tested years to get it right. This is pre-alpha test in productive systems
- kccoder 2y ago
  Musk long ago lost the right to be given the benefit of the doubt on anything. The man lies constantly, has the temperament and self-control of small child, an ego the size of Jupiter, is reportedly a ketamine addict, and has verifiably silly things about software design and development. He's completely self-serving. Everything he says is for his own benefit. If you view his statements through that lens you'll quickly have a better understanding of what is happening. I have a similar lens for Trump: The opposite of what he says is closer to the truth. It's incredibly reliable.
  - jkubicek 2y ago
    > has verifiably silly things about software design and development Even if you're willing to ignore everything else you said, you'd think a group like Hacker News commenters would recognize how obviously out of touch Musk is with anything software related.
ozozozd 2y ago
So many Elon threads, some with conservative defenders, no mention of Chesterton’s fence by anyone, when it’s so apt. More importantly, Chesterton’s fence is a conservative idea. And it’s an important idea. I am not a conservative, but I am not a total idiot so I can appreciate the wisdom of _not tearing down the fence without understanding why it’s put up there._

45 points by rbc 2y ago

The problem isn't that they don't know COBOL. The problem is they're not asking questions about things they don't understand. That's very dangerous in legacy code environments.

dpc_01234 2y ago
[flagged]
- ronbenton 2y ago
  >How many years do I need to wait for Twitter to collapse any moment now, because Musk fired all the "irreplaceable" people? To be fair, usage has likely dropped commensurate with staffing! >These government systems by necessity are not very complex I don't believe this is correct. CMS has a bunch of their source code on their website. The COBOL parts are quite expansive and there is probably a whole lot more out there: https://www.cms.gov/PricerSourceCodeSoftware https://www.cms.gov/PricerSourceCodeSoftware Look, I have no issue with wanting to modernize government systems. An organization I used to idolize, the US Digital Service, did this as their full time gig... and most of them were just axed. I'm not sure a few 19 year olds are going to do better than this organization. It's hard work.
  - dpc_01234 2y ago
    > To be fair, usage has likely dropped commensurate with staffing! The profit, which is what actually matters is up. > I'm not sure a few 19 year olds are going to do better than this organization. It's hard work. The problem was never technical. Ever tried to get stuff done in a bloated corporation full of incompetent people that just want to keep their jobs and don't want you to expose how relatively incompetent they are, especially the management? Things that a competent engineer in a startup could do in a day, are impossible to do. And in a government it's probably 1000-fold so. Dumping some data from legacy system to a modern one is not a problem. The problem is firing people that can't deal with change. "You don't know what you're doing. Everything is sooo complex. You're going to break it. I've been doing it for 50 years, I know what's right."
    - jkubicek 2y ago
      > Dumping some data from legacy system to a modern one is not a problem. Dumping data from some legacy system to a modern one is a MASSIVE problem. Extremely well paid and experienced software engineers regularly hose their infra migrating from one system to another, and it's a near certainty that these commercial products don't have the complexity of of the whatever critical US Government system these kids from DOGE are mucking about in.
    - rstuart4133 2y ago
      > The profit, which is what actually matters is up. Citation needed. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/ https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/ Given revenue is been steadily dropping since Musk purchased it and is now down to 2014 levels (roughly 1/10th of it's peak year, which is the year before Musk bought it) and it is burdened by huge amounts of debt, it would be impressive indeed if it was making a profit.
- fzeroracer 2y ago
  > These government systems by necessity are not very complex, because the hardware at the time did not have capacity for anything too complex. This is possibly one of the most absurd takes I've read on HN in a while. I'm imagining someone trying to learn how a PC game programmed in Assembly works going 'how hard could it be, PCs in the 90s weren't that complex'
  - ronbenton 2y ago
    I'm always interested in hearing people out, but these legacy COBOL codebases are massive, complex behemoths. Certainly eyebrow-raising to hear someone say they are not complex.
    - winocm 2y ago
      Don't forget F77 codebases too.
    - dpc_01234 2y ago
      "Massive", "behemoths". The same words you'll hear when you ask a man about their manhood, or their biggest catch. First hand source, so must be true. I also trust government workers to give fair representation of their work. And what you SWE write on their resumes or what OKRs when filling time to justify paycheck. :D They're a couple of database "tables" and formulas, what else they would supposed to be, think about it. They might be archaic, they might gnarly, limited etc. but they are no match for a modern next.js with react, in a docker container on a VM, running in a AWS datacenter, managed by Terraform, yadaydayda...
      - strangecasts 2y ago
        They're not complex in the Big O sense, they are complex systems in the sense that they have to incorporate and reconcile organizational knowledge from very different domains - e.g. Ron Jeffries' "Why Is Payroll Hard" http://wiki.c2.com/?WhyIsPayrollHard http://wiki.c2.com/?WhyIsPayrollHard - while working in a predictable fashion with implicit requirements on availability and consistency, which the average web app stack more often than not leaves as "someone else's problem"
- coffeefirst 2y ago
  > These government systems by necessity are not very complex, because the hardware at the time did not have capacity for anything too complex I'm guessing you haven't met anyone who's actually worked on any of these system.
- ipaddr 2y ago
  Didn't twitter already collapse now valued at single digit billions. The loss of traffic helped with the reduced headcount efforts. You don't need 80% of employees with 80% less dollars earned.
  - dpc_01234 2y ago
    > In 2024, X (formerly Twitter) reported profits of $1.25 billion, which is about double its highest previous profit of $682 million in 2021. People believing what they want to belive. Not to mention that you talk about revenue and users, because it's hard to deny that technically Twitter is still working just fine, and now even has some new features, while in the past they were coasting tweaking their html for years. On this very websites, all the "experts" in the industry were bidding how quickly Twitter will collapse after Musk fired all these "irreplaceable" people. Same ones that after 15 year still don't understand how Bitcoin works, or how it can have beneficial impact on the energy market.
    - verzali 2y ago
      $1.25bn is EBITDA not profit. Revenue is down by about 50% since 2021.
    - penjelly 2y ago
      Twitter revenue is down 48% since musk acquisition, also due to interest and other costs they operated at a net loss in 2024, Not a profit. Who is really choosing what they want to believe?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

minimaxir 2y ago

I tested it and it turns out LLMs can follow commands such as "Port the following Python code to COBOL", although it's certainly harder to validate the output is correct.

croes 2y ago
It's useless to port the code if you don't understand the data.
lowlevel 2y ago
No need to check. It isn't.
YeGoblynQueenne 2y ago
You don't understand. Your COBOL code may be 99.99999% right and still cause millions of dollars to vanish :poof: in a flash. If the DOGE team have this bright idea of getting an LLM to mess with the COBOL on mainframes there is going to be widespread chaos beyond human imagination.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ttyprintk 2y ago
  Or, payments during an emergency. Say, avian flu.
minimaxir 2y ago
(to be clear this is most definitely not an endorsement of this approach, but you know DOGE is going to try it anyways)
mek6800d2 2y ago
You're porting in the WRONG direction. The existing COBOL code is undoubtedly using system utilities such as database management systems, etc. on the mainframe computers. And I doubt that you've written Python code that smoothly integrates into that system environment and just needs to be ported to COBOL. And I doubt that the mini-Musks can do so. (I'm not including the massive application-specific knowledge that you and they would or should need to grasp before attempting to insert code into the system.)

9front 2y ago

"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as criminal offense" Edsger Dijkstra, 1975.

mrbombastic 2y ago

Maybe this is a dumb question, but why would they have to make changes to cobol at all if there stated goal is to reduce spending? Wouldn’t it be more like figure out the outflows and just auditing spending and then turning some off?

cowboylowrez 2y ago
they're operating under a department created by Obama to improve software, so while the department musk is "running" has wildly different goals than the original department did, I'm thinking dorking with software is the ONLY leverage they have. Unfortunately for the country, we use lots of software lol insert sad trombone sound here If it were an honest attempt to reduce spending, wouldn't it happen in congress?

6510 2y ago

If you remove everyone who says it cant be done from the room you are left with people who all think it is possible. (hahaha)

readthenotes1 2y ago
That's pretty much what the guy in charge of the Titan sub said.
- GoToRO 2y ago
  Well, they DID dive...

Gee101 2y ago

Musk runs companies where software mistakes can kill people. I would give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to software.

elonistheworst 2y ago
Musk runs a company that makes a product called "Full Self Driving" that cannot safely or legally be used for full self driving, and has therefore injured hundreds and killed north of 50 people. Under no circumstances should be be given the benefit of the doubt with anyone's safety, finances, or wellbeing.
- tmn 2y ago
  This is a kind of weird rationalization where the conclusion leads the interpretation of the facts. It’s hard to get away from the fact that space x and Tesla deal with critical systems. And by most accounts, they’ve pushed things forward
  - croes 2y ago
    Yes, and they studied and tested years to get it right. This is pre-alpha test in productive systems
kccoder 2y ago
Musk long ago lost the right to be given the benefit of the doubt on anything. The man lies constantly, has the temperament and self-control of small child, an ego the size of Jupiter, is reportedly a ketamine addict, and has verifiably silly things about software design and development. He's completely self-serving. Everything he says is for his own benefit. If you view his statements through that lens you'll quickly have a better understanding of what is happening. I have a similar lens for Trump: The opposite of what he says is closer to the truth. It's incredibly reliable.
- jkubicek 2y ago
  > has verifiably silly things about software design and development Even if you're willing to ignore everything else you said, you'd think a group like Hacker News commenters would recognize how obviously out of touch Musk is with anything software related.

ozozozd 2y ago

So many Elon threads, some with conservative defenders, no mention of Chesterton’s fence by anyone, when it’s so apt. More importantly, Chesterton’s fence is a conservative idea. And it’s an important idea. I am not a conservative, but I am not a total idiot so I can appreciate the wisdom of _not tearing down the fence without understanding why it’s put up there._