Exercises — Chapter 42: The Future of COBOL

Exercise 42.1: AI-Assisted Code Documentation

Objective: Use AI tools to generate documentation for COBOL code.

Tasks: 1. Take any undocumented COBOL program from earlier chapters (or use MYSTERY.cbl from Chapter 41). 2. Use an AI tool (ChatGPT, Copilot, or another LLM) to generate: a one-paragraph summary, inline comments for each paragraph, a data dictionary for key fields. 3. Review the AI-generated documentation for accuracy. Mark any errors or hallucinations. 4. Write a comparison: how does AI-generated documentation compare to documentation you would write yourself? Where is the AI strong? Where does it fail?

Exercise 42.2: TCO Analysis

Objective: Perform a Total Cost of Ownership analysis for maintaining vs. replacing a COBOL system.

Scenario: A mid-size insurance company has a 500,000-line COBOL claims processing system. Current maintenance cost: $1.2M/year. The CTO wants a comparison of: - Option A: Continue maintaining with modernization (CI/CD, APIs, AI tools) - Option B: Replace with a cloud-native Java application - Option C: Hybrid — keep core logic in COBOL, move UI and analytics to cloud

Tasks: 1. Estimate 5-year costs for each option. Include: development, infrastructure, staffing, training, risk contingency, opportunity cost. 2. Estimate risks for each option (probability and impact of failure). 3. Present a recommendation with supporting analysis. 4. Identify what additional information you would need to make a more confident recommendation.

Exercise 42.3: Hybrid Architecture Design

Objective: Design a hybrid architecture for a given business scenario.

Scenario: A state government agency runs a COBOL-based tax processing system (2M lines). They need to add: an online taxpayer portal, mobile filing capability, real-time refund status tracking, and fraud detection using machine learning.

Tasks: 1. Draw an architecture diagram showing mainframe and cloud components. 2. For each component, specify: technology platform, data flow, integration mechanism. 3. Identify which functions stay on the mainframe and which move to the cloud. Justify each decision. 4. Design the data synchronization strategy between mainframe and cloud. 5. Estimate the staffing required (COBOL developers, cloud developers, DevOps, data engineers).

Exercise 42.4: Career Development Plan

Objective: Create a personal career development plan for a COBOL-focused career.

Tasks: 1. Research current COBOL job postings (Indeed, LinkedIn, Dice). Document: job titles, required skills, salary ranges, locations, industries. 2. Identify three career paths that interest you (from section 42.7 or your own ideas). 3. For your top choice, create a 5-year development plan: skills to acquire, certifications to pursue, experience to seek. 4. Identify three specific companies where you would want to work and explain why. 5. Write a professional summary (for LinkedIn or resume) that positions your COBOL skills as an asset.

Exercise 42.5: The Debate Essay

Objective: Develop and defend a position on COBOL's future.

Tasks: 1. Choose a position: "COBOL will still be running critical systems in 2050" or "COBOL will be substantially replaced by 2050." 2. Write a 1,500-word essay defending your position. 3. Include: at least three pieces of evidence from this textbook, at least two external sources, a counterargument and your rebuttal. 4. Conclude with your prediction for the specific state of COBOL in 2035 (a nearer and more verifiable timeline).

Exercise 42.6: AI Conversion Quality Assessment

Objective: Evaluate the quality of AI-generated code conversion.

Tasks: 1. Take a 100-200 line COBOL program with clear business logic. 2. Use an AI tool to convert it to Java (or Python). 3. Compare the original and converted versions line-by-line for: functional correctness, numeric precision (especially COMP-3 to BigDecimal), handling of COBOL-specific features (88-level items, REDEFINES, PERFORM VARYING). 4. Write a quality assessment report identifying: accurate conversions, minor issues, critical errors, features that could not be converted. 5. Estimate what percentage of the conversion could be used as-is vs. requiring manual correction.

Exercise 42.7: Knowledge Transfer Plan

Objective: Design a knowledge transfer plan for a retiring COBOL developer.

Scenario: A senior COBOL developer with 30 years of experience is retiring in 12 months. They are the sole maintainer of 15 critical programs. Two junior developers (1 year experience each) will take over.

Tasks: 1. Create a month-by-month knowledge transfer schedule. 2. Prioritize which programs to transfer first (based on criticality and complexity). 3. Design the transfer methodology: documentation, pair programming, shadowing, recorded sessions. 4. Identify risks and mitigation strategies. 5. Define success criteria: how will you know the knowledge transfer was sufficient?

Exercise 42.8: Modernization Roadmap (Capstone Exercise)

Objective: Create a complete modernization roadmap for a COBOL-based system.

Scenario: You are the chief architect at a mid-size bank with 1.5M lines of COBOL. The CEO has asked for a 5-year modernization plan that does not involve replacing COBOL but makes the system more accessible, maintainable, and integrated with modern technology.

Tasks: 1. Define the current state (assumptions about existing infrastructure). 2. Define the target state for each year (what will be different). 3. Create a roadmap with specific initiatives, timeline, dependencies, and costs. 4. Address all five textbook themes in your roadmap. 5. Present your plan in a 10-minute presentation (slides or document).

This exercise integrates concepts from the entire textbook and is suitable as a final course project.