PA Progress Report is a Lie!

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The 99.66% done statement for the PA Y2K project office is a lie. From an insider working on the project for one department, here was their Y2K approach to testing: 1. Reboot the server and set the year to 2000 2. Play around with some dates for the weekend.

Literally, the test plan was 3 sentences and included no specific dates, data, or fields to check. They tested for 1 weekend!

Did they "test" for Y2K compliance? Maybe so, but the test was worthless - a complete farce. You can bet that the same thing has occurred throughout the PA government. All these "token effort" tests sum up to that wonderous 99.66% done. Not only that, by just 30 of 40 agency even report status!

A year from now, PA will be a paragon for poor planning, tracking, and reporting of progress against Y2K compliance, and Governor Tom Ridge will have egg on his face and more problems than he can handle.

-- Whistle_Blower (dontmail@tome.com), March 01, 1999

Answers

Posted this a few days ago, from IBM. >:)=

IBM is encouraging customers to sharpen their focus on Year 2000 testing and to accelerate their plans.

Major information technology consultants agree. Year 2000 testing will take 40 to 60 percent of the total Year 2000 transition effort. Yet customers are leaving far less time and resource to adequately test the readiness of their systems. And many small businesses are unaware of the need to test at all.

Customers must test not only remediated applications and new packaged applications, but also the interaction between applications and the supply chain. If they do not, they run the risk of IT system failure when the century turns.

Year 2000 testing is NOT accomplished merely by trying several dates after Jan. 1, 2000 in major applications. Testing is NOT accomplished by obtaining the assurance of hardware, system software and application software providers that their offers are "Year 2000 ready."

While they are critical steps, these items are components of a comprehensive Year 2000 test plan which should also include infrastructure tests, testing non-IT assets and supply chain testing outside the enterprise.

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), March 01, 1999.


Whistle, perhaps they employed the same 2-member Y2K team that the Post Office used when they were finished with the Post Office testings? ;->

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), March 01, 1999.

typical doombrood nonsense.

"From an insider working on the project for one department,"

Name NAMES, expose this to the media, contact the gov. or you are just another BSer.

-- Mutha Nachu (---@whistleblowermyeye.com), March 01, 1999.


Mutha Nachu evidently hasn't been out of the house, read a paper, or turned on CNN for the past twenty years. Whistleblowers are an endangered species. The profession, on occasion, has been hazardous to life, and its practicioners often find themselves without gainful employment. There are, supposedly, laws guaranteeing the whistleblower freedom from retribution, but to claim the law's protection can be a very expensive process in itself, with no certainty of success.

Maybe the poster in question prefers a regular income, providing food and shelter, to applause from readers of this forum.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), March 01, 1999.


All right! That's the last straw. If we Pennsylvanians can't trust our Republican vice presidential candidate to tell us the truth, who can we trust? :-)

Actually, I'm not sure deception is intended here. From what I've seen the past few years I've lived here, it just might be that they truly think they've tested for Y2K. After, anyone whose travelled the roads here in PA can attest to the low quality of work that this state government puts forth every year. I'm guessing it's just shear incompetence.

David

-- David (David@BankPacman.com), March 01, 1999.



Hasn't Pennsylvania, like the FAA, been 99% compliant since September '98? Are they competing to see who will finish their last 1% first? C'mon, guys, someone has to win this race!!

That last .34% sure is a bitch...

-- Steve Hartsman (hartsman@ticon.net), March 02, 1999.


AHhhh, yes...

of course there is no way to anonymously tip anybody off to this. what a crock. just more FUD.

"Maybe the poster in question prefers a regular income, providing food and shelter, to applause from readers of this forum."

what difference does it make? if we are all doomed anyway, who cares about the job. according to most on this forum, there will be no government left after 2000...so what gives?

And if the Gov. really is lying, couldn't people be at potential risk if the truth isn't exposed? isn't that sort of 'self-centered' to only tell the readers of this forum that "inside information"?

like I said...put up, or shut-up.

-- Mutha Nachu (---@turquoisblueskies.com), March 02, 1999.


Hi M. Nacha,

Several times over the past few years some people have named names. Every single one of them has had to 'retract' their statements (and most never posted again). One of them had to take down part of his WWW site that was open for anonymous posting of information (that was the Damocles site of Peter de Jager). The latest person to issue a 'retraction'(about 2 weeks ago)was Bill Hoyt, who hasn't posted since, to my knowledge.

-- Dean T. Miller (dtmiller@nevia.com), March 02, 1999.


Mutha Nachu: And the reason you do not use your real name is...??

Gee, looks like your head popped out of your ass again...better stuff it in deeper next time!

-- a (a@a.a), March 02, 1999.


Well I wouldn't come down too hard on PA. At least they are testing something. Thats a lot better than some that I know where the official line is "if the vendor says it's compliant then we don't need to wasted time testing it".

And now for a brief reality check. Generally speaking testing is, was and always will be a joke. With the exception of the likes of NASA programmers are not engineers. They are not familiar with detailed testing disciplines. With few exceptions companies are not willing to use proactive development techniques such as testing driven design and development (where test plans form the basis of project definition.) With few exceptions, questions about test plans will be met with a big Huh?

For those who say name name, I won't. Why not, first I kind of like my job. Besides I've already been made to look foolish when I named names on the embedded chip challenge - when the company received the verification request their response was "we don't know where that rumor started". Well that rumor started with their own project manager who admitted it at a Y2K user group meeting - but now the company denies it.

Anyway, at least PA did some testing, I stongly suspect that is better than most.

jh

-- john hebert (jt_hebert@hotmail.com), March 02, 1999.



oh, my apologies "MR. A" whose very valid e-mail address allows him to comment! like I said before cultist; don't like me? ignore me! You are too far gone, baby! No hope! (for those of you who don't know, this is the cell that 'a' posts from...)

I will come visit when the doctor says its o.k. tho'...
Why no real name for me?.... gee let's see.... my official goverment surveillance handbook says "when dealing with unstable cultists, a certain degree of anonymnity is certainly desirable, since one never knows when they will 'snap' and plunge off the deep end...possibly becoming violent with the potential to harm others or themselves" ...or, maybe its just more fun this way.... ta-ta

-- Mutha Nachu (---@flakes,flakes,everywhere.com), March 02, 1999.

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