by ronbenton on 2/16/25, 2:07 AM
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.
by mrbombastic on 2/16/25, 3:40 AM
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?
by doganugurlu on 2/16/25, 9:10 PM
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._
by 6510 on 2/16/25, 3:56 AM
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)
by 9front on 2/16/25, 3:21 AM
"The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as criminal offense" Edsger Dijkstra, 1975.
by Gee101 on 2/16/25, 4:08 AM
Musk runs companies where software mistakes can kill people. I would give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to software.
by minimaxir on 2/16/25, 2:13 AM
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.