Ed Yourdon sighting in the press...greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread |
Here: http://www.canoe.ca/CalgaryNews/cs.cs-06-21-0015.html(I suppose this is referring to the idea that any device can have an IP address, and with the right kind of programming, the things mentioned here can be possible. Let's hope we have the opportunity o find out...)
Life after Y2K
A fridge that talks
By IAN WILSON, CALGARY SUN
Just picture it - you're driving home from work and a computerized voice comes over your car stereo.
It says: "This is your refrigerator calling. Just a reminder that there's no beer left and you may want to pick some up."
That's the world of convenience Ed Yourdon says awaits us in the post-Y2K era.
The American Y2K expert -- who recently withdrew from the public discussion on the issue -- sees these talking appliances as one of the major developments to follow the pesky millennium bug.
"This is what I see as an untapped market," Yourdon told Calgarians at a stop here recently.
Yourdon expects the idea to blossom out of the information technology sector's current interest in areas such as e-commerce.
"You can buy anything on the Internet," he said.
"Even with the distraction of Y2K, many companies are enthusiastic about jumping into e-business."
The millennium bug is sure to delay such developments, said Yourdon, but once the concept of talking appliances takes off he expects rapid growth in that area.
"The level of intelligence of many of these devices has grown and I think the next thing that will come is the wiring of all the appliances together," he said.
"Your toaster could e-mail your microwave oven -- I'm not sure where this is going to go or why you'd even want your toaster to talk to your microwave ... but it's going to create a whole new industry."
And the demographics support such an industry.
As the boomers get older, they're going to want -- and eventually come to expect -- a range of services never seen by previous generations.
So, while several companies are preoccupied with the millennium bug for now, Yourdon says that will change.
"I had a life before Y2K, and I would like to think I'll have a life after it," he said.
"I don't want to do any more Y2K stuff. I'm sick of it -- I want to get into some of these new fields."
Yourdon points out that 75% of information technology companies aren't even working on Y2K-related problems.
"For some people, Y2K was never an issue to begin with," he said.
And if the millennium bug's impact turns out to be minimal, companies will be anxious to move on.
"The entire business community is going to say 'Thank God, now we can get on with other projects we've wanted to do for a year or so now.' "
-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), June 21, 1999
Hmmm... I definitely was in Calgary, back on May 12th -- and I do remember being interviewed by at least one media person. But I don't remember saying "I don't want to do any more Y2K stuff. I'm sick of it -- I want to get into some of these new fields." I can imagine that I might have acknowledged being "tired," in the sense of physically exhausted, and I can imagine having said that I no longer had the energy to continue doing the pro-bono community-event talks ... but to have said "I'm sick of it" would have been entirely out of character for me.I *can* imagine having said that for some people Y2K was never an issue to begin with -- but it would have been said with heavy sarcasm. The reference to "75%" is also misleading: assuming that I said something along these lines, it would have been that in most companies, 75% of the IT professionals are NOT working on Y2K projects -- i.e., the average company is only devoting 25% of its IT resources to Y2K, so it doesn't seem to me like it's being taken as seriously as it should be.
As for the stuff about home appliances with their own IP addresses: that was something I wrote about three or four years ago in my "Rise and Resurrection of the American Programmer Book." Comments like these are usually part of a response to the ever-popular question of "What do you think the computer field will do after Y2K is over?" I usually begin my response by saying something along the lines of, "That assumes there really is an 'after' to talk about. The computer industry seems to be expecting that Y2K will be 'over' in about 24 hours, so they can get back to eciting new technologies -- but it's more likely to be months, if not longer. And it's quite possible that business and industry will be so irate at what the computer industry has done to them that they'll insist we get back to basics -- e.g., formal software engineering, proper project management, etc. -- and clean up our act before they let us play with new toys."
I wrote an article about this in "Software Development" magazine a couple months ago; I think it was in the April issue, but I might be off by a month or two. In any case, I've appended it below so you can get a more balance "in context" feeling for my opinions on the matter.
Bottom line: my opinion on Y2K hasn't changed. I'm not wiring IP addresses into refrigerators; in fact, I'm still in the market for a high-efficiency refrigerator that I can run from my solar generators. Attempting to cope with newspaper/magazine articles that either misquote, misrepresent, or take comments entirely out of context is one of the reasons that I dropped off the radar screen.
Ed
********************************************* WHAT COMES AFTER Y2K? By Ed Yourdon
Now that were into the final year before Y2K, the media has begun exhibiting a curious form of schizophrenia. On the one hand, the mainstream consumer media is reporting on programmers who are packing their bags and heading for the hills, as well as conducting surveys to see just how many people are planning to remove their money from the bank. On the other hand, the computer press has already begun talking about Y2K in the past tense: numerous articles and editorials are now asking the question, "What comes after Y2K?" Will we see an explosion of e-commerce applications? Will we finally scrap COBOL and rewrite everything in Java? Or is there some other, equally wonderful future that we can all look forward to after weve recovered from the Y2K "bump in the road"?
Questions like these are relevant for both project managers and application developers, especially because many companies have put a temporary moratorium on all new application development for the rest of 1999, while they frantically finish up their Y2K testing and contingency planning. And while this is viewed as an annoyance by all of those software developers who are itching to get started on their next component-based, object-oriented masterpiece, we should also remember that we have a large crowd of software developers who have spent the past three years putting their careers "on hold" as they scanned through ancient legacy COBOL and C++ programs, looking for non- compliant dates. These people, too, are wondering what comes after Y2K, and theyre even more desperate to escape a dead-end career and move back into leading-edge technology.
Id like to offer a simple litmus test for predicting the post-Y2K future: the extent to which we'll be able to focus on leading-edge technology projects will be almost entirely a function of just how serious Y2K turns out to be. If indeed it's nothing more than a "bump in the road," then we'll be overwhelmed with demands for implementing ambitious new systems, with exciting new technology -- for the simple reason that approximately 25% of IT resources in 1998-1999 have been diverted to Y2K, thus creating a backlog of new projects. The "bump in the road" scenario seems to be the common assumption throughout the industry; after all, only a small percentage of IT organizations have allocated any money for Y2K after 1999, presumably because they assume that all Y2K work will be finished by then. When pressed, some IT managers will concede that there will be a few programs we didn't get around to fixing; and yes, there may be a few bugs to fix, and a few corrupted databases to recover. But as far as most IT managers and professionals are concerned, this is all just a temporary annoyance: in a matter of days or weeks, we'll get back to business as normal.
But what if it's NOT over in a couple of weeks or months? What if Y2K leads to massive corporate bankruptcies, heralding a long-term economic recession? What if it leads to breakdowns in international telecommunications, or a shut-down of the world's airports for six months? Maybe it won't be quite so bad on a national, or international, scale; but many organizations are likely to be seriously damaged by Y2K problems; even if they don't suffer immediate bankruptcy, they may find themselves bleeding profusely from the equivalent of a thousand tiny cuts. All new development work in 2000 may be further postponed as the entire IT department is assigned to SWAT teams to fix the problems in mission-critical systems, as well as patching together all of the so-called "non-mission-critical" systems that the Y2K teams never got around to fixing. For better or worse, I think many IT organizations are going to find that they're doomed to they spend the entire year of 2000 in non-stop fire-fighting; especially for the Y2K project teams that were already working 80 hour weeks before January 1, 2000, this may turn out to be the last straw.
Meanwhile, what kind of reaction should we expect to this year of fire- fighting from our end-users and senior management? I believe that there's a good chance that we'll experience a backlash beyond anything we've ever seen before. I think it's possible we'll be told to freeze everything when the Y2K crisis subsides. "Don't write another line of code," we might be told. "Forget about Java. Forget about e-commerce. Let's get back to basics and get our IT house in order before we try anything new." We might be ordered to spend the first five years after Y2K documenting software development standards that we've blissfully ignored all these years. We might be ordered to pass certification tests -- not the vendor-specific certification tests from Microsoft and Novell, but rigorous tests created by the IEEE or ACM to see if we really have any idea of what software engineering is all about. We might be told to create mechanisms for independent testing, verification, and auditing of *all* information systems. We may be told that we all have to go back to school and learn database normalization, structured analysis, and a host of other software engineering disciplines that we once studied, but then forgot.
Indeed, we may find that society has been so badly burned by Y2K, and corporate executives have become so angered by the damage to their organizations, that they simply won't tolerate today's "cowboy" software development any more. Wouldn't it be interesting if the government passed a law prohibiting the sale of any software that hasn't been independently tested to a sufficient level of thoroughness? Wouldn't it be interesting if the government passed a Software Safety law that prohibited the disclaimers and legal mumbo-jumbo that we see on the first page of user manuals for every popular software package? Wouldn't it be interesting if we were told that we had to grow up and behave as if we were responsible adults?
Suggestions like these often infuriate project managers, especially because they feel that senior management contributed heavily to today's problems -- and to whatever Y2K disasters we may be facing -- by demanding irrational development schedules, and by squeezing money out of budgets that should have been allocated for documentation and quality assurance. But regardless of whose fault it is, the backlash will be the same; indeed, it has already begun. The SEC has begun demanding Y2K disclosure reports in corporate 10-Q and 10-K financial statements, so that investors can make a reasonable judgment about their investment risks. If Y2K turns out to be a major economic problem -- e.g., if it's blamed for a major stock market crash and for unexpected bankruptcies in large Fortune-500 companies -- then the disclosure regulations will become far more stringent, and far more detailed. Indeed, we'll probably see something equivalent to the level of detail and formality associated with today's corporate financial statements; and just as those financial statements must be certified by an independent, objective auditor, we're likely to find the SEC demanding that an organization's IT department undergo a similar form of independent auditing. Remember: the SEC was created in the aftermath of the 1929 stock market crash, because the government felt that unregulated financial practices had caused a serious threat to the country; now the government is worried that software (in the form of Y2K problems) may have caused a serious threat to the country, and it may ask the SEC to create a parallel set of regulatory procedures.
What does this mean to today's project manager and software engineer? It means that you should pray fervently to whatever gods you believe in, in the hope that we'll be spared from major Y2K disruptions. And it means that you should begin checking to see whether your prayers are being answered: check to see how things are going in your company's Y2K project teams, and also in the normal maintenance activities in your IT organization. A number of companies have already begun experiencing Y2K problems in early 1999 because of the so-called "JoAnne Effect" -- named after a Canadian bookkeeper who warned the Y2K community a few years ago that accounting systems, financial systems, and even payroll systems often "look ahead" a full year when carrying out their calculations. If normally-stable production systems in your company have been crashing mysteriously during the first few months of 1999, it may be an early warning signal of worse problems to come. If your own W-2 statement arrived weeks late, and if it was wildly incorrect, and if the Human Resource department has declared "radio silence" on all communications with the rest of the company, you may be getting a preview of what life will be like during the first few months of 2000.
And if you think you might get sucked into the fire-fighting mess, this is a good time to ensure that you're well-rested and that you've taken all the vacation days you're owed. Don't be surprised if vacations are cancelled for *everyone* in the IT department during the last quarter of 1999 and the first half of 2000. While you're at it, this is a good time to check that all of the "traditional" procedures of backups, change control, configuration management, and documentation are being carried out properly in your own area of the IT department. Early manifestations of Y2K problems in other parts of the IT organization may spread, causing network disruptions, server problems, and corrupted databases in your part of the organization.
More importantly, these early warning signals may give you a clue about the long-term future: it's hard to imagine that serious Y2K problems would *not* lead to a demand for stricter, more rigorous, more formalized software development procedures. If the demand comes from professional societies and/or governmental regulators, it's likely to be reasonably "generic," so that it can be tailored to the diverse needs of different kinds of IT organizations. Thus, we might see a demand that companies follow the ISO-9000 or SEI-CMM approach, and that they subject themselves to regular audits and assessments. The SEI, for example, requires that a formal risk management process, requirements management process, and configuration management process be carried out in order to reach level 3 on the CMM scale; it doesn't matter what "brand" of risk management process the organization carries out, as long as it can provide evidence that the process is well- defined, and that it is being carried out consistently and rigorously.
Again, suggestions like these tend to infuriate many project managers and software engineers -- especially those who believe that ISO-9000 and SEI-CMM are a bureaucratic quagmire that provide no useful benefit. Such project managers are entitled to their opinion, but they may not get much sympathy in the aftermath of a serious Y2K crisis; whether it's right or wrong, the political reality is that a crisis is usually followed by imposition of onerous regulations. The SEI-CMM may be less than ideal, but at least it was developed by a group of people who know something about software; imagine how much worse things could be if we found ourselves regulated by rules created by members of Congress! Imagine what we could find ourselves dealing with if software is regulated by procedures created by accountants in the SEC! Any professional body -- whether it's doctors, lawyers, accountants, or software engineers -- is likely to find it easier to deal with formal procedures created by its own members, rather than having to cope with regulatory procedures created by politicians.
Thus, if you're a project manager or software engineer who accepts the possibility that Y2K may create serious problems, the fundamental message is: now is the time to clean up your act. Now is the time to dust off those methodologies and formal software processes that your organization documented years ago, but which everyone has ignored. Now is the time to ensure that your project team has a well-defined software process, and that you're following procedures that would at least qualify for level-2 on the SEI-CMM, if not level-3 or level-4. Indeed, if you're really serious about this, now is the time to buy a copy of Watts Humphrey's "A Discipline of Software Engineering" (Addison-Wesley, 1995) so that you can learn about, and begin practicing, a formal, rigorous *personal* software process.
Now is the time for all of this. We have less than 11 months before the full force of Y2K hits our industry, and after that, it may be too late to control our fate as software engineers. ======
-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), June 21, 1999.
What the holy hell is that shit????How could he be so radically agitated about the disater that Y2K might have on the world and then talk about talking refridgerators and how wonderful life is going to be with the advent of e-trading?
What the hell is up with Ed Yourdon? Is this his way of saying Hardy har har I fooled all you idiots into buying my books and now that I have a shitload of money I'll be spending it on talking kitchen appliances? Working on other projects? SICK OF Y2K?? Can someone please tell me how this guy can even show his face in public after making statements like that? How can you be bored with what he refers to as a global depression???
Damn that man, damn his persona and damn him to whatever greedy hell drives him to flip flop on the y2k issue like a wet sheet on a clothes line. I hope he gets what his greedly little mind deserves, a life of total wealth and treasure and talking refidgerators... and add a nasty C2 vertabrae break leaving him a quadrapalegic to boot.
-- (not@trolling.actually pissed), June 21, 1999.
Nah!
Look...Y2K will eventually pass...just like the Black Death in the 14th Century Europe.
Time to plan what we will be doing after Y2K.
-- K. Stevens (kstevens@its_all_going_away.com), June 21, 1999.
Ed is hoping he'll have a life after Y2K, and he may have a good chance of that since he prepared and has a bug-out shelter. We all would like to think we have a life after Y2K, and yes we can get really really sick and tired of thinking about Y2K. Rather depressing and unnerving, to say the least. If we were done with our preps and were safely bug-proof and feeling secure yes we'd turn our attention to our stifled dreams, just for the relief and to hang onto hope and move forward.Remember that Ed has had a head-start and has been dealing with Y2K longer and more intensely than many. Everybody who has seriously dealt with it wants it over and done!
But Time Will Tell ...
xxxxxxxx xxxxxxxx x
-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 21, 1999.
Maybe it's a good thing Ol' Ed got out. "your toaster could e-mail your microwave" ???? And this was your leader??I'm sorry but I have to LOL!!!
Deano
-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), June 21, 1999.
What's this "and he was your leader" stuff? Jeesh...I don't think Ed ever expressed that he thought Y2K was going to "go Infomagic", rather that there would be a year of breakdowns followed by 10 years of depression. Personally, I think it will be somewhat similar to the 1929-1945 timeframe. And for the millions who did not die, life went on in some form or another. True, some people, in Leningrad for instance, were forced to eat shoe leather, while others, like my family in California moved in together, planted a garden, went off to war, and benefitted from the building boom after the fact.
Innovation will not stop completely, in a year of breakdowns and ten of depression. People will not forget what they have learned, the world won't stop. (unless it does)
Maybe some people would rather have seen Ed Yourdon continue to be a Y2K voice, it was his choice. And we're all thinking about what life will be afterwards, in one way or another.
-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), June 21, 1999.
Looks like you beat me to it, Ed...
-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), June 21, 1999.
Most thoughtful Yourdynamites consider their leader to be THEMSELVES.Ed is a guidepost, an excellent writer, an intelligent, honest, kind and thoughtful, decent generous man.
But when it comes to life and death decisions, we scan the thoughtwaves and then go to our conscience, experience, history, intuition, and fully to God.We weigh the risks, stakes, consequences, possibilities, and karmic outcomes ourselves. Nobody but us and God and our true spiritual Guru-Preceptor is present in the final Court. We shoulder the responsibility of our decisions and also ask Grace from the Lord.
What other people do, in the end, matters far less than what we do. Our life actions/thoughts/deeds are accountable to God. Coming before Him is the ultimate fear and joy. We are prepared.
xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxx xxxx
-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 21, 1999.
just a figure of speech there ol' Patrick. You have to admit that article was a bit humorous. I would love a fridge that alerted me to bring home more Michelobs. Get it?? www.yourdon.com and this is the dicussion forum for his website. kinda makes him your leader.......kinda......Can't believe I had to explain that one to ya......sheesh! :-)
Deano
-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), June 21, 1999.
Well Deano, another "Open Mouth Insert Foot" commentary on your part. You might want to keep your foot in your mouth for a while!!Ray
-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), June 21, 1999.
Thanks, Ed, for breaking your silence (must have been blissful ;^) and shining the light of factual truth into the murky pit of assgumptions. You remain, as always, a hero to us. We've already described our leaders. Thanks for quickly setting the real record straight.
-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 21, 1999.
Quote from above: "And it's quite possible that business and industry will be so irate at what the computer industry has done to them that they'll insist we get back to basics -- e.g., formal software engineering, proper project management, etc. -- and clean up our act before they let us play with new toys."Maybe management will get some smarts (won't that be the day!) and insist that the development TOOLS that they let their programmers use, be relatively bug-free, straightforward, well documented, and compile into well-behaved executables. And be cautious about jumping onto the trendy language or "technology" du jour. That would do more to get Microsucks, for example, to clean up its act than any anti-trust suits.
-- vbProg (vbProg@MicrosoftAndIntelSuck.com), June 21, 1999.
RayRayAnother NOTHING from you BigBoy. At least you're consistent.
No need to insert foot. Stand by what I said. That man said toasters would be e-mailing microwaves. Do you not find that a completely ridiculous statement? Or are you so infatuated with the word of Ed, anything he says should be defended.
You need to get a Websters and look up the word 'cult' PAL.
Deano
-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), June 21, 1999.
i knew it--i knew it' ed yourdon is a STAND-UP-GUY. & JUST THINK WE,S NEIGHBORS. uh-oh now i,m in trouble.SORRy ED you,ve got enough enemies.--sure wish i could ask me.-y what he thinks the conditions are in N.M. OH WELL I WILL BE ADDING ANOTHER POND.THINK-ECO
-- al-d. (catt@zianet.com), June 21, 1999.
I'd like to express my thanks to Ed for clearing up this confusion of the misquoting journalist. Yet, I think this journalist seems to have their them on the fortune pulse with regard to the push for e-commerce and corresponding lack of interest and committment to possible Y2K problems. Without going into who's who (I like what we do), I see an incredible push to sell e-commerce and an equally incredulous lack of interest, action, and thinking about Y2K at the large business level including banks. Yes, I may be criticized that this is just more hearsay (as Mr. Decker and others might complain), but I am telling you what I see with my very own eyes and through the eyes and ears of my business (and domestic) partner, Meg. Again, the focus and hub bub about e-commerce and other significant electronic opportunities seems more important than getting potential Y2K problems taken care of before the rollover. At least, this is true at the big IT consultant companies and their clients. Flint, for example, might remind me that these companies are just doing business as usual; they are just planning out their strategies for seizing new opportunities like they always do. I can appreciate that. We do it, ourselves. But we don't do it to the extent of an apparent exclusion of a real understanding of the Y2K challenges ahead and getting our work tools Y2K-compliant.Sincerely, Stan Faryna
P.S. I have a cousin who is the manager of the information systems at a major post office. Last time that I asked, he didn't even know what Y2K meant. When I told him about it; he thought I was pulling his leg.
-- Stan Faryna (info@giglobal.com), June 21, 1999.
I choose not to believe that Americans on this board would leave out the second big step in (any crisis) Y2K planning, the continuation concepts after the event - whatever the event. Insurance under previous scenarios, possible permanent relocation after hurricane or flood, tornado shelter after tornado and always - future livelyhood and lifestyle "What will people need? trade for?, what skill do you have that is valued - or could you learn?Make no mistake - this is a serious element and deserves thought, planning and preparedness efforts also -
Part of the American Heritage is to pack up and be a part of the solution - after the first hit of a tidal wave, people scramble back in to place as early as it is safe and get productive.
Follow Ed's lead, prepare as best as you can then plan for the long term future and do what you must to keep balance and mental health all through the process!
-- living in (the@real.world), June 21, 1999.
That man said toasters would be e-mailing microwaves. Do you not find that a completely ridiculous statement? Or are you so infatuated with the word of Ed, anything he says should be defended.
Deano, have you read anything about computer technology?
- Neil A. Gershenfeld, When Things Start to Think, Henry Holt, 1999. From the Amazon.com review:
A computer in your shoe? Maybe so. Neil Gershenfeld, director of MIT's Media Lab, joins the ranks of techno-prognosticators with When Things Start to Think, and his focus is on how the future of computing will fit into our physical realities. This sensorial focus allows Gershenfeld to explore such science fictional ideas as wearable computers, nanotech circuitry implants, as well as such concerns as emotions, money, and civil rights in the new age of artificial intelligence. Gershenfeld provides a historical overview of the development of computers and extrapolates a world in which we will be forced to deal with things that think all the time. This can't help but reshape our society in ways we must try to imagine. You may be surprised at how far along this road we are--Gershenfeld is in exactly the right place to tell this story, and it's a whole lot of fun (and a little scary) to ride this wave with him.- Ray Kurzweil, The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence, Viking Press, 1999.
- George B. Dyson, Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence, Perseus Books, 1998.
Ed Yourdon is a latecomer to this particular bandwagon.
-- Alan Rushby (arushby@my-deja.com), June 21, 1999.
Once more the fourth estate displays how accurate it can be. Goose eggs again. And we wonder why most Y2K reporting is limited to planes falling out of the sky stuff.......
-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), June 21, 1999.
Alan,I've read some IT books. Not the one you refer to but I've read a few. I've not doubt that artificial intelligence is right around the corner, but not for the everyday consumer. Appliances as he refers are quite a ways off and when they do arrive they'll be out of JQP's price range. I don't think my fridge will e-mail my microwave, but I can see my AC unit e-mailing the service contractor that it's time for a tune-up.
Deano
-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), June 21, 1999.
Deano,
Well, personally, I wouldnt want the AC sending out for a tune-up without asking me first, unless it has its own bank account.
The point made by Kurzweil is that with the price of CPU cycles dropping by a factor of 1000 each decade, things that are expensive or impossible today will be available to the masses in a few years. In 1975 word processors were expensive and only businesses could afford them. Now our baseball team mom has a better color printer than I do.
Y2K may slow this juggernaut down a bit, but it wont stop it.
-- Alan Rushby (arushby@my-deja.com), June 21, 1999.
Ed,Here's a name and number for efficient "Conserve" (Norway) refrigerators and freezers. I ordered a 7cu. ft. freezer which is said to be a 10 cu. ft. size in the U.S. Paid 700. He is located in Pa. and is reliable. 717-677-6721.
-- BB (peace2u@bellatlantic.net), June 21, 1999.
Ed,Whatever you do, don't buy a Whirlpool! :)
-- Marv Albert (G.A.@msn.com), June 21, 1999.
Deano: here dumbass:Jini (not Java deano) technology
-- a (a@a.a), June 21, 1999.
First, nobody is my "leader" but I am able to listen to "leaders" for ideas and thoughtful discourse. And now......the rest of the story.Circa 1750
"The King, as always, hast thine own best interest at heart. Long live the King, and his colonies, it could never be another way"!
Circa 1850
"What? Ah say there is no way that the slaves are going to be set free, the economy of the south could never handle it."
Circa 1925
"Having won the war to end all wars, peace and prosperity for the foreseeable future."
Circa 1950
"What? Goodness no! That is science fiction! It will take at least a hundred years to get a man on the moon"!
Circa 1999
"Maybe it's a good thing Ol' Ed got out. "your toaster could e-mail your microwave" ???? And this was your leader?? I'm sorry but I have to LOL!!!"
Deano
That's right Deano, it couldn't happen.
Never
How stupid
-- Unc D (unkeed@yahoo.com), June 21, 1999.
It's funny how far some people will go to discredit others. Do people that prepare really threaten you THAT badly, Ian?Is Australia in such a bad hole that you have taken to painting others in dark colors to relieve your misery? I am not shocked to see one of the press with such low morals... but it does give me cause to wonder, that you have no concern for your journalistic credentials.When you see the people of your own country suffer with y2k related problems, remember YOU are one of the ones that furthered their ignorance, when you could have so easily helped, instead. I hope this horrid example of journalism follows you like an albatross and those who would trust your competance and honesty see you in it's true light. Ian, I am sure we will have many jobs available to you after y2k...You might even think about politics! You sure have the stomach for it.And the integrity!
-- River (Riverwn@aol.com), June 21, 1999.
Pssssst, I think that Calgary is in Canada, pass it on.
-- Unc D (unkeed@yahoo.com), June 21, 1999.
Got it in one, Unc. However, if the dweeb is such a poor journalist, Aussies can have him!
-- Tricia the Canuck (tricia_canuck@hotmail.com), June 21, 1999.
Aren't all Aussies named "Bruce", anyway? 8-}]======================
(Enter fourth Bruce with English person, Michael)
Fourth Bruce: 'Ow are you, Bruce?
First Bruce: G'day Bruce!
Fourth Bruce: Bruce.
Second Bruce: Hello Bruce.
Fourth Bruce: Bruce.
Third Bruce: How are you, Bruce?
Fourth Bruce: G'day Bruce.
Fourth Bruce: Gentleman, I'd like to introduce man from Pommeyland who is joinin' us this year in the philosophy department at the University of Walamaloo.
Everybruce: G'day!
Michael: Hello.
Fourth Bruce: Michael Baldwin, Bruce. Michael Baldwin, Bruce. Michael Baldwin, Bruce.
First Bruce: Is your name not Bruce?
Michael: No, it's Michael.
Second Bruce: That's going to cause a little confusion.
Third Bruce: Mind if we call you "Bruce" to keep it clear?
===============================
-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), June 21, 1999.
I think Ed is exactly on track with his predicting that programming will soon become far more regulated than it is now. There is no way that buggy shrink-wrapped software could get released in 2001 in the West without bringing infinite grief to the developer (forget the exclusions being legal anymore). I also expect that programmers will have to get degrees to be able to continue their careers, no matter how impressive their experience. They MAY be allowed grace periods to get them (and still be able to program for a living in the meantime), but very possibly not. P.S. For what it is worth, I am a programmer-in-training, on top of a few other things; I have also read a couple of Ed's non-Y2K books, and found them astute. www.y2ksafeminnesota.com
-- MinnesotaSmith (y2ksafeminnesota@hotmail.com), June 21, 1999.
This here's the Wattle,the emblem of our land.
You can stick it in a bottle,
you can hold it in your hand.
-- Unc D (unkeed@yahoo.com), June 21, 1999.
Ed,Thank you for your thoughtful response. I appreciate the fact that you took the time you did to provide us with a vision of the future of IT.
I have two Masters Degrees and had four certifications, requiring a Masters, three years experience and an 8 hour exam, and continuing education, to practice in my field. The idea of not documenting and providing accountable evidence and rationale for my decisions would have been irresponsible.
I believe you are correct in your analysis; catastrophies usually result in regulation to provide accountability and liability for professional work. IT will be held to higher standards in the future. I don't think, however, that this will slow technology development much; it will just transform IT and make it better and more trustworthy, IMHO.
Best wishes to you in the future. You have provided me with a glimmer of what responsible IT could be in the future, and I am sure you will continue as a leader and teacher. Thank you for all your effort to help people understand the realities and possibilities of Y2K,and to prepare. Your efforts have inspired me to prepare for Y2K and have the hope of preparing for beyond. No matter what the outcome of Y2K, you will be remembered in many hearts and minds for your keen intelligence and generosity of time and spirit.
-- Leslie (***@***.net), June 21, 1999.