The engineering team at Reco recently demonstrated the power of "vibe porting"—the process of using Large Language Models to translate codebases between programming languages—by rewriting the JSONata expression language. Originally written in JavaScript for the Node-RED platform, the tool was entirely ported to Go in just seven hours. By leveraging AI to handle the translation, the team bypassed months of manual labor, spending only $400 on tokens to achieve a functional prototype.

The project’s success relied heavily on a robust, pre-existing test suite. This allowed engineers to instantly verify the AI's output, catching edge cases where logic diverged from the original implementation. It highlights a shift in software engineering where the developer's role moves from writing every line of code to orchestrating migrations through high-level prompts and validation frameworks.

To ensure reliability, Reco employed a "shadow deployment" strategy. This involved running the new Go-based version in parallel with the original version, comparing outputs in real-time to ensure parity. While the $500,000 savings figure is ambitious, the achievement underscores how AI reduces the effort required to modernize legacy infrastructure and optimize performance.

The engineering team at Reco recently demonstrated the power of "vibe porting"—the process of using Large Language Models to translate codebases between programming languages—by rewriting the JSONata expression language. Originally written in JavaScript for the Node-RED platform, the tool was entirely ported to Go in just seven hours. By leveraging AI to handle the translation, the team bypassed months of manual labor, spending only $400 on tokens to achieve a functional prototype.

The project’s success relied heavily on a robust, pre-existing test suite. This allowed engineers to instantly verify the AI's output, catching edge cases where logic diverged from the original implementation. It highlights a shift in software engineering where the developer's role moves from writing every line of code to orchestrating migrations through high-level prompts and validation frameworks.

To ensure reliability, Reco employed a "shadow deployment" strategy. This involved running the new Go-based version in parallel with the original version, comparing outputs in real-time to ensure parity. While the $500,000 savings figure is ambitious, the achievement underscores how AI reduces the effort required to modernize legacy infrastructure and optimize performance.