DOGE said they’re going to rewrite the existing SSA code, which is done in COBOL, to modernize it, and everyone is pointing out how fraught with peril that is. This is saying they’re going to do it in assembly, which is what we do when we need highly efficient code, like for a resource-constrained real-time control system, but is also much more challenging to program. The chance of rewriting a giant COBOL application in Assembly, and not making a whole mess of errors, is really small. And it would be very hard to maintain.
Maybe barely, but I imagine most assembly variants have conveniences like labels for jumps, labels for referencing data included in the executable, and at least some also have things like simple macros or calculating mathematical expressions at compiletime.
DOGE said they’re going to rewrite the existing SSA code, which is done in COBOL, to modernize it, and everyone is pointing out how fraught with peril that is. This is saying they’re going to do it in assembly, which is what we do when we need highly efficient code, like for a resource-constrained real-time control system, but is also much more challenging to program. The chance of rewriting a giant COBOL application in Assembly, and not making a whole mess of errors, is really small. And it would be very hard to maintain.
Just get the guy that made rollercoaster Tycoon in Assembly, he’ll knock it over in a week.
Also assembly is even older than COBOL.
I’m unsure if this is also an April fools joke
In broad terms it’s true, though there are some variants of assembly that are newer than COBOL.
Assembly language is one step above machine code, and was the first large step toward a world where people write server-side code in Javascript.
Assembly is machine code, but with words and hexideci numbers instead of 1s and 0s and comments/white space, it’s barely a language, from the 40s.
COBOL is a compiled language from the 60s. The compiler turns the somewhat human-readable code into assembly the computer can read.
Maybe barely, but I imagine most assembly variants have conveniences like labels for jumps, labels for referencing data included in the executable, and at least some also have things like simple macros or calculating mathematical expressions at compiletime.