Ah yes, a classic tale...

"We're going to take this perfectly efficient and functional COBOL code base and rewrite it in Java! And we'll do it in a few months!"

So many more competent people and organizations than them have already tried this and spectacularly crashed and burned. There are literal case studies on these types of failed endeavors.

I bet they'll do it in Waterfall too.

It's interesting. If they use Grok, this could well be the deathknell for vibe programming (at least for now). It's just fucking tragic that their hubris will cause grief and pain to so many Americans - and cost the lives of more than a few.

Edit: Fixed some typos.

There are only two reasons softwares goes for decades without being replaced:

1. It’s so unimportant that nobody uses it
2. It’s so important that the last major bug was squashed 15 years ago

How this will go:

DOGE: "Okay Grok. Convert this COBOL code into Python."

Dumb AI: "Certainly! Here you go."

System crashes and exposes all Americans' SSNs

DOGE: "Fuckin' DEI hires...!"

Australian here.

They are robbing you

This has the stench of junior engineer all over it. This rewrite will go way over budget and come limping across the finish line late, with more bugs and less features than the system it replaces. I guarantee it.

"ROFL"

Signed, everyone who has been involved in migrating a codebase before.

These comments are completely missing the truth.

They have zero intention of rebuilding anything, this is just an excuse to destroy SSA ...

This is like a new programmer coming in to their new job, seeing the code isn't perfect and saying they could rebuild the entire thing and do it better in a month.

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.

Oh no, he wants to “rebuild the stack” from the ground up again.

This is just another step down "I honestly just can't comprehend the stupidity of what is going on in the American government"-alley...

Like... what do they even expect to come of this? Why are they even interested in doing it? Is it just to stir up shit?

i hope elon and the entire "doge" team dies. i really do.

They're really playing with fire here.

So many MAGA supporters are seniors who are entirely dependent on OASDI. If Trump's minions break this, we're going to see torches and pitchforks strapped to electric scooters and golf carts coming out of Florida retirement communities in droves.

"…but sir, we only know Node.js…"

Months? I don't k ow how to code, and even I know that's impossible.

If it fails spectaculairly who will take the blame? Will there be any repercussions at all?

Or will Musk and Trump shrug their shoulders? Halfheartedly blame Biden for badly programming the original database then go play some golf/videogaminges?

step 1. rewrite into spaghetti code

step 2. nobody understands the new code, so the govt has to contract elon musk for code maintenance forever

step 3. profit

This clusterfck has me seriously considering whether taxes are quite as certain as death anymore.

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.

if (!=white) {benefits=false}

This idea is terrifying in the most insidious ways. Who has access to the code? Who is auditing the code? Are they putting in code that may disenfranchise "the right people". How long will it take to come to light? When found out, provided 'Adults' are running the country again, how much and how long would it take to fix it? And what backdoors are in the code?

This is bad news all around.