Re: Based on language translation
The generated functions and production code have to be tested; they are not guaranteed to be correct.
That's not generally a characteristic you would welcome in a compiler. It's not as if there isn't open source code available* for parsing and lexically analysing COBOL and Python, so you just need to glue a code generator on the back end for the target language. You might not get a result that you can visually associate with the original (though you could put that in comments), but at least it would be functionally correct^.
I'm not quite sure how an enormous amount of effort to produce a flawed AI solution + unknown effort to correct the result actually saves time and money. Particularly when elderly code has a habit of working in mysterious and undocumented ways - usually the main reason it is preserved.
Edit: And given the world is supposedly moving towards container-based microservices, why convert stuff anyway if it's working?
*With the exception of proprietary language dialects.
^Assuming conforming data types for source and target
Biting the hand that feeds IT
