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OpenCBS: An Open-Source COBOL Defects Benchmark Suite

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Paper breakdownThe authors' claims, conditions and measurements, as JSON Signed receiptProof this review has not been altered
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Dylan Lee, Austin Henley, Bill Hinshaw, Rahul Pandita

Software Engineering · Submitted 13 Jun 2022

abstract compiled · 2026-09-23 · no language-model review

The authors' main claim Our goal is to provide an open-source COBOL benchmark and testing suite that encourage community contribution and serve as a resource for researchers and tool-smiths in this domain.

how it is stated · asserted 0.93 read the record →

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arXiv ID2206.06260 (version 1)
Pith IDYSDBS2SK, Pith's permanent record of this paper and its review
CitationAustin Henley, Bill Hinshaw, Dylan Lee, Rahul Pandita. "OpenCBS: An Open-Source COBOL Defects Benchmark Suite." arXiv:2206.06260 (2022). https://pith.science/paper/YSDBS2SK
Claim paper

The compiled record

The paper's own sentences, arranged. Each label is drawn from a closed vocabulary; the number beside it is the probability the classifier gave that label. Numbers in the tables are the authors', checked by code. No sentence in this record was written by a model.

Open the compiled record

Compiled by classifier-1.13.0 via TypeSafe API, question bank abstract-p1-20260923, 2026-09-23: 1 request, 7,518 input tokens.

What the abstract itself states, as probabilities: claims first 0.07 · states limitation 0.17 · human participants 0.11 · controlled comparison 0.02 · randomized assignment 0.01 · states quantitative result 0.03 · compares with prior results 0.05 · mentions code or data availability 0.89.

The abstract, sentence by sentence

arXiv listing abstract v1. Results and the main claim are underlined; .

As the current COBOL workforce retires, entry-level developers are left to keep complex legacy systems maintained and operational. This creates a massive gap in knowledge and ability as companies are having their veteran developers replaced with a new, inexperienced workforce. Additionally, the lack of COBOL and mainframe technology in the current academic curriculum further increases the learning curve for this new generation of developers. These issues are becoming even more pressing due to the business-critical nature of these systems, which makes migrating or replacing the mainframe and COBOL anytime soon very unlikely. As a result, there is now a huge need for tools and resources to increase new developers' code comprehension and ability to perform routine tasks such as debugging and defect location. Extensive work has been done in the software engineering field on the creation of such resources. However, the proprietary nature of COBOL and mainframe systems has restricted the amount of work and the number of open-source tools available for this domain. To address this issue, our work leverages the publicly available technical forum data to build an open-source collection of COBOL programs embodying issues/defects faced by COBOL developers. These programs were reconstructed and organized in a benchmark suite to facilitate the testing of developer tools. Our goal is to provide an open-source COBOL benchmark and testing suite that encourage community contribution and serve as a resource for researchers and tool-smiths in this domain.

background contribution method result interpretation main claim

What the classifier reports for each sentence. The number is the probability it gave the label.
#sentencerolethe authors' own workstates the main conclusionstrength
s0 As the current COBOL workforce retires, entry-level developers are left to keep complex legacy systems maintained and operational. background 1.00 0.05 0.03 asserted 1.00
s1 This creates a massive gap in knowledge and ability as companies are having their veteran developers replaced with a new, inexperienced workforce. background 0.97 0.05 0.04 asserted 1.00
s2 Additionally, the lack of COBOL and mainframe technology in the current academic curriculum further increases the learning curve for this new generation of developers. background 0.99 0.05 0.02 asserted 1.00
s3 These issues are becoming even more pressing due to the business-critical nature of these systems, which makes migrating or replacing the mainframe and COBOL anytime soon very unlikely. background 1.00 0.07 0.04 asserted 0.80
s4 As a result, there is now a huge need for tools and resources to increase new developers' code comprehension and ability to perform routine tasks such as debugging and defect location. background 0.70 0.07 0.12 asserted 1.00
s5 Extensive work has been done in the software engineering field on the creation of such resources. background 0.99 0.03 0.02 asserted 1.00
s6 However, the proprietary nature of COBOL and mainframe systems has restricted the amount of work and the number of open-source tools available for this domain. gap 0.73 0.06 0.05 asserted 1.00
s7 To address this issue, our work leverages the publicly available technical forum data to build an open-source collection of COBOL programs embodying issues/defects faced by COBOL developers. contribution 0.52 0.94 0.14 asserted 1.00
s8 These programs were reconstructed and organized in a benchmark suite to facilitate the testing of developer tools. method 0.75 0.92 0.09 asserted 1.00
s9 Our goal is to provide an open-source COBOL benchmark and testing suite that encourage community contribution and serve as a resource for researchers and tool-smiths in this domain. contribution 0.77 0.49 0.31 asserted 0.93

What kind of paper the classifier reports this is: dataset or benchmark 1.00 · evidence from analysis of existing data 0.76.

What was examined, and what was not

sources read
  • arXiv listing abstract v1
not examined
  • full text
  • figures and tables
  • references and citing sentences
  • relations to other papers
levels run
  • P abstract
not run
  • S sections
  • T body sentences
  • C citations
  • R cross-paper relations

Every quoted sentence on this record is the authors'. Every label is from Pith's closed vocabulary, with the probability shown beside it. Every number in the measurements table is the authors', checked by code. Record as JSON

The paper
Original abstract

As the current COBOL workforce retires, entry-level developers are left to keep complex legacy systems maintained and operational. This creates a massive gap in knowledge and ability as companies are having their veteran developers replaced with a new, inexperienced workforce. Additionally, the lack of COBOL and mainframe technology in the current academic curriculum further increases the learning curve for this new generation of developers. These issues are becoming even more pressing due to the business-critical nature of these systems, which makes migrating or replacing the mainframe and COBOL anytime soon very unlikely. As a result, there is now a huge need for tools and resources to increase new developers' code comprehension and ability to perform routine tasks such as debugging and defect location. Extensive work has been done in the software engineering field on the creation of such resources. However, the proprietary nature of COBOL and mainframe systems has restricted the amount of work and the number of open-source tools available for this domain. To address this issue, our work leverages the publicly available technical forum data to build an open-source collection of COBOL programs embodying issues/defects faced by COBOL developers. These programs were reconstructed and organized in a benchmark suite to facilitate the testing of developer tools. Our goal is to provide an open-source COBOL benchmark and testing suite that encourage community contribution and serve as a resource for researchers and tool-smiths in this domain.

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