[0xCE0]

I really wouldn't want any vibe-coded COBOL in my bank db/app logic...

[egorfine]

vibecoding != AI.

For example: I'm a senior dev, I use AI extensively but I fully understand and vet every single line of code I push. No exceptions. Not even in tests.

[hnlmorg]

Whilst I agree with your point, I think what sometimes gets lost in these conversations is that reviewing code thoroughly is harder than writing code.

Personally, and I’m not trying to speak for everyone here, I found it took me just as long to review AI output as it would have taken to write that code myself.

There have been some exceptions to that rule. But those exceptions have generally been in domains I’m unfamiliar with. So we are back to trusting AI as a research assistant, if not a “vibe coding” assistant.

[atomicnumber3]

Unfortunately, the people who are "pro-AI" are so often because it lets them skip the understanding part with less scrutiny

[worksonmine]

> Not even in tests.

This should be "especially in tests". It's more important that they work than the actual code, because their purpose is to catch when the rest of the code breaks.

[tjr]

That is my preferred way to use it also, though I see many folks seemingly pushing for pure vibe coding, apparently striving for maximum throughput as a high-priority goal. Which goal would be hindered by careful review of the output.

It's unclear to me why most software projects would need to grow by tens (or hundreds) of thousands of lines of code each day, but I guess that's a thing?

[elzbardico]

And I do a lot of top level design when I use it. AIs are terrible at abstraction and functional decomposition.

[eps]

Aye. AI is also great for learning specifics of poorly documented APIs, e.g. COM-based brainrot from Microsoft.

[null_deref]

Does the use AI always implies slope and vibe coding? I’m really not sure

[jebarker]

No, it doesn't. For example, you could use an AI agent just to aid you in code search and understanding or for filling out well specified functions which you then do QA on.

[foxmoss]

Because the question almost always comes with an undertone of “Can this replace me?”. If it’s just code search, debugging, the answer’s no because a non-developer won’t have the skills or experience to put it all together.

[shevy-java]

How many banks really use COBOL? Here in central Europe it seems to be Java, Java, Java for the most part. Since many years actually.

[pverheggen]

In the US, there are several thousands of banks and credit unions, and the smaller ones use a patchwork of different vendor software. They likely don't have to write COBOL directly, but some of those components are still running it.

From the vendor's perspective, it doesn't make sense to do a complete rewrite and risk creating hairy financial issues for potentially hundreds of clients.

[pixl97]

As others have said, US banks seem to run a lot of it, as in they have millions of lines of code of it.

This is not saying that banks don't also have a metric shitload of Java, they do. I think most people would be surprised how much code your average large bank manages.

[jamesfinlayson]

I'm in Australia and a friend of a friend had a COBOL job working at a mid-sized bank (the COBOL had lots of Java on top). Australia's big banks are older than this bank so if they're not using COBOL at the bottom layer, they'll be using something similarly old for sure.

[shakna]

ECB is mostly COBOL and Fortran. The interfaces are Java, but not the backend.

[ironbound]

Management loves trying to save money, a bunch of grads with AI have differently had a project to try to write COBOL!