Doomers like to talk about disconnect. I think the ultimate examples of disconnect are exhibited here every day in the lunatic ravings posted on this forum. If the newbies ever need assistance on getting off of the fence in one direction or the other, the doomers with their inability to accept the fact that life with failures goes on every day is more than enough to show all of us where the disconnect really lies.

Sorry guys, 99% has always been good enough. As a matter of fact, anyone who's ever done any type of inventory work knows that 100% accuracy is cause to go back and do it again.

If my sytems were accurate 99% of the time, I'd be thrilled. If my grocery store's automated checkout machine was 99% accurate, I'd be ecstatic.

Anyone who demands 100% compliance and complettion is the one who has the disconnect.

-- not here (get@grip.now), August 03, 1999

Answers

Hey, your asking people who quote a pig farmer about Y2K predictions to get a grip??

Now that is a disconnect!

-- The Comet is coming... (got@your.Nikes?), August 03, 1999.

Good post & thanks.

Cause I must not be a doomer. I haven't posted any "lunatic ravings"

but i can tell you this: people that want to be prepared for the failures that are SURE to come, are often Branded doomers, like i've been.

it's nice for optimists to say one thing, but it's a whole different thing for me to bank my children's lives on it.

de jager wants to impress me on his united flight, he can scoop up a bunch of preschoolers and take them along, since he's so sure.

"What?" you say? "that's an unnecessary risk" you say? why put your kids lives in jeopardy when you don't have to?

EXACTLY-- now you should understand why people should prepare.

-- SuperLurker (slfsl@yahoo.com), August 03, 1999.

Superlurker...Why would you want to put preschoolers on a plane at midnight on Jan. 1 anyway, even if there were no fear of y2k?

I always love the types who prey on the fears of genuinely concerned people by being the voice for those who can't speak for themselves - preschoolers in this case.

Sorry...I have three kids of my own...2 being preschoolers. I find your attempts at terror offensive.

-- not here (get@grip.now), August 03, 1999.

I agree, 99% is pretty good. How about 98% or 95%? How about 90% or 80% or 70%? When does the "system" slow down? When does it "stop?"

How much of the problem if fixed? How much "will be" fixed? <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), August 03, 1999.

you missed the point.

if you find my way of getting you to see the point offensive, forgive me.

the point is, WHY put your children in more danger than they need to be in? (i.e., why NOT prepare, when koskinen himself has said there will be problems)

-- Superlurker (slfsl@yahoo.com), August 03, 1999.

Not here: I find your attempts to hide that you understand Superlurker's preschoolers-on-a-plane analogy to be amusing.

Doncha just hate it when you GET IT?

-- lisa (i'm@here.yep), August 03, 1999.

Sysman...thank you for your response. I think you are one of the most credible and thoughtful people here, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you.

You raise a very good and legitimate point. At what point do the failures start to happen? Let me ask you, though, in all honesty don't you think that both sides of this discussion are putting far too much emphasis on % completed ?

99%...97%...who knows. People lie and distort all of the time. Perhaps the discussion should not be about % complete but how to minimize any potential disrution to your own life for any reason.

-- not here (get@grip.now), August 03, 1999.

Lisa...silly girl, don't patronize me. I never said I don't "get it" But there is a huge difference between "getting it" and being stupid.

-- not here (get@grip.now), August 03, 1999.

refering all to my original post. My complaint is NOT with "preparing". My complaint is with the lunatic raving of the forum.

Lisa, you help contribute to the fray by making connections where there are none.

-- not there (get@grip.not), August 03, 1999.

not here

If there were truly a 99% completion rate - that might very well be enough. But no one really knows what a 99% ready means on mission critical systems. It is not 99% compliant on mission critical. It is almost meaningless in that no one really knows the parameters that are being rated. In addition, no one really knows the implications of the non-mission-critical systems not being compliant or ready.

-- Jean (jmacmanu@bellsouth.net), August 03, 1999.

Jean...Yes!! Now we're getting somewhere!

Since "no one really knows" or believes what the government and other public officials are saying anyway, why waste your time with bitching about their compliance ratings? Why not let them to their own peril and just press on with the decisions you've made in good conscience?

-- not here (get@grip.now), August 03, 1999.

Not here: (and you obviously are, dammit) tanks! Insults from trolls are particularly delicious.

Now, about this:

"99%...97%...who knows. People lie and distort all of the time. Perhaps the discussion should not be about % complete but how to minimize any potential disrution to your own life for any reason."

Right, and just so happens Y2K is the most current reason going. We already have all types of other insurance because we've all seen terrifying instances where insurance was most helpful.

Never seen nothin' like this Y2K before, though. I promise that next time one rolls around, I'll know exactly what to do and won't bother discussing it over the internet. Fair enough?

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), August 03, 1999.

Lisa...Believe it or not, I actually enjoy conversation with you.

But, there's one thing I need to clear up. I honestly believe that you and I would probably agree on more items than we would disagree. But since in your words I am a "troll"...that must mean that you are...?

-- not here (get@grip.now), August 03, 1999.

not here

I am not aware of anytime or anyplace that I have been "bitching" about government ratings of completion, compliance, or readiness. I am also about the business of preparedness relative to myself, those I love, and those with whom I have influence. I post on this forum because I believe that those who make misleading statements are not only imperiling themselves, but also others. I also believe that those "others" may need as much input as they can gather to be able to see all of the implications of their choices. There are people who are only now becoming aware of the Y2K issue as a threat. I would hope that they would have as much information and different perspectives available to them as is necessary to make the right decision for themselves.

-- Jean (jmacmanu@bellsouth.net), August 03, 1999.

Hean...a tip of the hat to you. This forum desperately needs more level headed discussion such as you are offering.

And by the way, I didn't intend to point the "accusing finger of bitching" in your direction.

Regards,

Not here

-- not here (get@grip.now), August 03, 1999.

You're right, shouldn't have called you a troll.

Someone - BigDog? - mentioned that, overall, pollys are closet doomers and doomers are closet pollys. I'm certainly a closet polly.

But I've been on teams that "misrepresent" progress because doing otherwise lands you another employment opportunity.

I simply think it's irresponsible to believe, optimistically, that things are even half as good as we're being told.

Just 'cause we don't want things to go sour doesn't make it OK to believe they won't. Indeed, that would be plain irresponsible.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), August 03, 1999.

Sorry, but 99% is NOT nearly good enough for many applications. Would you want to live by a nuclear reactor that didn't melt down 99% of the time? Fly on an airline who's planes didn't crash 99% of the time? Rid with a bus driver who didn't crash 99% of the time? (I wouldn't want to fly with them very often!) Go to a doctor or pharmacist who gave out medicine that was correct 99% of the time? Bank with a bank that only fouled up your account 3-4 times a year?

I wouldn't...

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), August 03, 1999.

Lisa...yes, again! See, we really can make progress here on this forum!

I wish more people would realize that it is ourselves who are ultimately responsible for our own and our families well being. We need to stop wasting our time on the inuendo, and devoting our tome to where it really matters.

We can't depend on the government to feed us, so we shouldn't rely on their information, either. Do you agree? That is not to say that we should discount everything , but not put too much stock in it, either.

-- not here (get@grip.now), August 03, 1999.

On November 4, 1997, Congressman James Leach, Chairman of the House Banking Committee said:

"Experts also emphasize that the problem must be fixed properly and on time if Year 2000 related problems are to be avoided. I was intrigued by a statement Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan made a couple of weeks ago. He pointed out that 99 percent readiness for the Year 2000 will not be enough. It must be 100 percent."

nothere,

perhaps you should let Mr. Greenspan know that he needs to get a grip. Oh yeah, and also notify Congressman Leach since he seems to have been impressed enough with this to actually quote the FRB Chief.

ROFL

-- (rofl@rofl.rofl), August 03, 1999.

ROTF...Greenspan is an idiot who precipitated the Asian economic crisis. He does need to get a grip. As do you.

-- not here (get@grip.now), August 03, 1999.

NOT HERE

In reading your post it seems basically illogical. Was that your intention?

You seem to actually refute the TECHNICAL REALITY of Y2k as "lunatic ravings".

Do you have a crystal Ball? Are you willing to risk your life and your kids because of your POTENTIALLY erroneous conclusion that Every computer is 99% fixed. Can you supply your source of information-- aside from these lunatic ravings.

Can you assure all of us that if the technical reality of the rollover does not have an impact that the psychological impact won't be severe? Just curious.

-- David Butts (dciinc@aol.com), August 03, 1999.

Not: I doubt Greenspan was out slurping martinis on a yacht whilst the LTCM fund was being bailed out (and the global economy pulled back from the edge of the cliff)....

I believe it was Soros who had a hand in the Asian Currency Crisis? Please, hurry up, correct me 'cause I'm wrong.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), August 03, 1999.

Mr. Butts wrote: Do you have a crystal Ball? Are you willing to risk your life and your kids because of your POTENTIALLY erroneous conclusion that Every computer is 99% fixed. Can you supply your source of information-- aside from these lunatic ravings.

Mr. Butts...my crystal ball is no more clear than yours. The difference is that I have aquired a lifestyle where I am not dependant on 99% of computers being fixed.

I will not be a sheople, on either ranch.

-- not here (get@grip.now), August 03, 1999.

Not Here,

More illogic, you started this post with a derogatory comment regarding this forum. Basically referring to the posters as "raving lunatics" and something to the effect that-who cares if the computers are only 99% fixed because that will be ok.

When I ask if you have a crystal ball. You respond with a condescending statement about how you don't need one because your all self-reliant.

If I was a psychiatrist I would submit that your post is a psychological projection about your own mental health. Either that or you are extremely arrogant.

-- David Butts (dciinc@aol.com), August 03, 1999.

Mr. Butts...Because I am content to live in an imperfect world, I am mentally unstable?

I would ask you to re-read my post. My concern is for those who have fallen into the trap of demanding perfection.

-- not here (get@grip.now), August 03, 1999.

"Not here" sure sounds like "Troll" Maria.

-- (nobody's@business.anyway), August 03, 1999.

Not: and our concern is people who believe things are gonna be completely hunky-dory and who will subsequently freak out if things are only 75% hunky-dory in January.

None of us here on this board are gonna freak. This is gonna be one big spooky fireworks show, but we won't be causing disruptions in any JIT area, because we'll be prepared.

People who you don't want us getting thru to are the ones to watch.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), August 03, 1999.

Not Here,

I'm done with you and your nonsensical raving lunacy.

-- David Butts (dciinc@aol.com), August 03, 1999.

luNAtIC raVINgS????? LuNATiC RAVinGS?????? INfiDEL!!!!! LUnaTIc raVInGS SUch AS "You DOomeRS ANd yOUr luNATIc raVIngS"???????

HYenA!!!!

-- Dieter (questions@toask.com), August 03, 1999.

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0399/033199t1.htm

[snip]

Bennett and Dodd have said final end-to-end testing, which demonstrates how interconnected computer systems work together, is one of the most important aspects of Y2K readiness. The March 31 deadline was set to give the government enough time to test and make last-minute repairs before the 2000 date change.

Bennett repeatedly has said that a 90 percent compliance rate is not compliant because every aspect of mission critical computer systems must be ready for them to work.

[snip]

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), August 03, 1999.

not here,

I think % is a best guess. There's an old "joke" in the computer business, that the last 10% of a job takes 90% of the time. Exaggerated yes, but somewhat true.There's always that last bug or two to find, and it is always the hardest one to dig out.

Software is hardly, if ever perfect. I see production jobs, having nothing to do with Y2K, blow up on an almost daily basis, sometimes with programs that have run for literally years without a problem, but somebody finds a way to get some bad data past an "edit" program. It's the old "gee, I didn't think of that" story. Testing is only as good as the test data.

Y2K is the biggest software maintenance project in history. My 31 years in the business says to me that it ain't going to be all that smooth, no matter what % is done. How many "critical" failures is the big question. <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), August 03, 1999.

Sysman said

Software is hardly, if ever perfect. I see production jobs, having nothing to do with Y2K, blow up on an almost daily basis

So do I.

Life goes on doesn't it?

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), August 03, 1999.

According to Greenspan, 99% compliance is not enough for banking.

If 99% isn't enough for him its certainly not enough for me.

-- R (riversoma@aol.com), August 03, 1999.

R

Your bank has NEVER made a mistake?? You mean to tell me of all the transactions your bank has processed over the years they have a PERFECT 1.000 batting average??

Wow. Extremely impressive!!

Wish I banked there. Mine has made a mistake or 2 over the years but somehow, someway, I managed to survive!!

Whew!

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), August 03, 1999.

In my opinion, the "disconnect" is in the assumption that a country, agency, a company, a system is isolated and that the % of fix or remediation declared means a heck of a lot. This declaration always includes a disclaimer as to inability to control the status of other countries, agencies, companies or systems with which the entity is interdependent and that are essential to its continued function.

John Petersen has a good [but older] article at http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/ entitled Y2K: A Strategic Inflection Point For All Of Us

[quote] "Theres no question about how to solve the technical problem. What is becoming painfully obvious though, is that there is not enough time to change all of the lines of code and replace the defective chips. We will come to the end of the millennium and many computer-controlled systems will fail. It may be bad. The lights might go out for a lengthy period of time. There might be food and water shortages. There will be many companies that fail. Wall Street economist Edward Yardeni, now predicts a 70% likelihood of a deep recession, and the growing possibility of a global depression.

"The good news and the bad news is that the United States is doing better at dealing with Y2K than any other country. Europe is consumed with the conversion to the new Euro currency which must be completed by the first of next year, and Asia is desperately trying to extricate themselves from the domino-like financial shocks that have ravaged most economies there. Y2K is on the back burner . . . if it is on any burner at all. The scale of the problem is not apparent to many foreign institutions. Citibank, for example, is spending $650 billion for solve Y2K problems in their systems, but all of the 49 largest banks in Japan are budgeting less than that total amount. The problem is so acute that a recent CIA analysis suggested the possibility that 60 countries could economically fail because of Y2K.

"Something of this magnitude could happen because we all are dependent upon other organizations and services that we do not control which have computer systems that may not work. The links are often not apparent. An electrical power plant could spend many millions of dollars assuring that all of their control systems were Y2K compliant, only to find that the regular coal train does not show up because railroads could not switch their tracks manually. Since many power plants only have days of coal supply it could mean they would have to shut down  even though they themselves were compliant.

"We are surrounded by these kinds of interdependencies, many of which link to other countries. We do not begin to understand the systems  the networknature -- of how we live.

"Unlike any other crisis, like a natural disaster, for example, we know this problem is going to happen. It is an absolute deadline which is not negotiable. This presents both a problem and an opportunity. This is not an earthquake, which suddenly does great damage without warning. In the case of Y2K we have more than a year to make people aware of the problem and put in place contingency plans to deal with possible failure. Furthermore, since we know parts of our social system may fail and will need to be rebuilt, we have the unusual opportunity of having the time to consider that design now, not later in the aftermath of the disaster." [end quote]

He just did an interview yesterday (August 2) on y2k news (sorry, don't have that link on this computer's bookmarks.) If there is one point he made, it was that regardless of % quoted, because of the interdependencies and "wild cards," NO ONE knows what is going to happen, how severe it will be or how long it will last.

-- marsh (armstrng@sisqtel.net), August 03, 1999.

Howdy Deano,

Sorry for the late reply. I haven't been "on" in a few days, and got lost. That's the problem with this forum, too busy...

So I guess we agree that software failures happen daily now. Here's my opinion of what happens when an ABEND occurs in just about any mainframe shop:

The operator sees a message on the console:

"PROGRAM CHECK" - "DATA EXCEPTION" for example.

If the operator doesn't see the message, no matter, he should notice the SEVERAL HUNDRED PAGE CORE DUMP on the printer.

The DUMP gets delivered to the poor programmer that is unlucky enough to be "on duty." He looks up the program name, and goes off to find the COMPILED LISTING of the program, or, he goes off to find the LATEST SOURCE, and compiles it. Let's assume that he is lucky, and the source matches the dump.

Now, we know where the program blew up. Maybe, if we didn't do a "jump to nowhere," which is quite common when things like BUFFER OVERFLOW type errors occur. But we're lucky, and we now know WHICH SOURCE STATMENT failed. But why did it fail? This is where it could go on for hours.

Let's just say that sometimes it's obvious, and easy to fix. Sometimes it's not so obvious, but easy to fix, once you've figured out what is going on. Sometimes it's not obvious, and not easy to fix. And, sometimes, it's just a bitch. Sometimes, you're lucky.

So, you've figured out what went wrong, you've taken a shot at fixing it, and are ready to "test," and I do put that in quotes. What is testing? If it's a hot production job, you fire your newly fixed program up against the master file, and if it runs, it's "FIXED!!!" Job well done!!! Well, if it's not too late, maybe you could find and look at an OUTPUT record, but what the hell, the job ran, I know I fixed it...

But, we also have those "noticed" errors. Somebody comes in bitching that "this doesn't belong here," and they are right. Now, we've got a new animal, a LOGIC ERROR.

In my humble opinion, these types of errors are MUCH HARDER to find than those that just "blow up." They could "come from anywhere" in the system, any step (aka any program) that deals with "that file," once you've figured out what "that file" is. This type of analysis is many times more difficult than "fixing a dump." I think that MOST Y2K errors will be this type of error. Hit and run. IMHO.

So, do we agree that this is a good description of a production shop, Deano? Is this what keeps us busy, now, today, pre-Y2K?

Can we agree on this:

"Y2K is the biggest software maintenance project in history."

Or do I have to get into what happens to program LOGIC when one is doing maintenance? Do I have to get into testing, and how good the test data is? Awww, shucks, you know what I mean.

I'm not attacking you here Deano. You've been around, and I think you're all right. I'm just trying to figure out the "optimist programmer" I guess. Maybe, you've just been lucky. <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), August 04, 1999.

I agree with Sysman, generally speaking the abends are, as we say in Australia, "a piece of piss" compared with the errors which are not noticed until several days, or believe it or not, weeks later. I've seen errors reported to me that are so old that the files involved have dropped off the end of the GDG's! These are hideous, they can take weeks, but usually, thank God, they are low priority or they'd have been noticed earlier.

Probably the worst scenario, in my opinion, is where databases have been corrupted and you have to recover to a backup, rerun heaps of jobs and reapply log tapes etc just to get back to the stage where you can run your fixed job. In most shops applications programmers can't do it, so you need to get the on-call DB guy in, he's not sure what to do so he gets his boss in and on and on it goes.

Give me a nice data exception at offset x'b123' any day. But then, of course, you have to hope that the check/restart logic has been set up correctly, so often it has not been because its a pig to test properly.

Another thing to consider pre-training support staff in useful utilities which will help you do things with input files like strip out the CC in dates which your program didn't expect or window in the CC which you were expecting, but didn't get. File-Aid is a ripper for this.

Plenty of work ahead I think, but at least I get Dec 31 and 1 Jan off, we're shutting down the machine over those 2 days, we're normally 24x7 but we absolutely don't want the risk of any file containing dates that span the century rollover so we're powering down completely to avoid the risk. Luckily we can but I feel really sorry for shops that don't have that luxury, they're going to have problems I think.

RonD

-- Ron Davis (rdavis@ozemail.com.au), August 04, 1999.

"so you need to get the on-call DB guy in, he's not sure what to do so he gets his boss in and on and on it goes"

LOL,

And you shall report to work, well, a few days after Christmas, and you will be "on duty" thru ??/??/??. We are a Y2K aware company. Bring the family.

LOL, <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), August 04, 1999.

Sysman

I agree, core dumps are a bitch. But not all data exceptions produce that type of dump. I have to go with what I know here. Our system does an edit check on every transaction that enters it (and there are literally millions of transactions every night). There can be 100's of different tran types - each with it's own mission. Each tran has start/stop columns for the fields that make up the 80 bytes.

If the tran does not 'fit' the pre-determined layout that the system is expecting (it could be date or dollar format), it will reject and end up as a one line item on a rejected tran report.

We found out during our Y2K testing that our system knows a helluva lot more than we thought it did.

Deano

-- Deano (deano@luvthebeach.com), August 04, 1999.

Why have the dis/misinformation PR types used percentages when this doesn't apply in software projects?

THEY KNOW YOU'LL TAKE THE BAIT..

One showstopping error can stop an entire system.

One tree branch on a wire can knock out power to many states. Remember the Western blackout in the recent past? A car is unusable with all parts in working order EXCEPT the steering wheel..

You know, 99.9% of the parts intact.

90, 95, 99% means almost done to the uninformed and the PR flaks they know that. That's what the masses want to hear after all.

ASK THE ED MEAGHER (Y2K Today) BINARY QUESTION AND FORGET PERCENTAGES

ARE YOU PRESENTLY USING THE SYSTEMS THAT YOU WILL IN 2000?

IF NOT, WHEN WILL THIS OCCUR?

Don't fall for the spin!!!!!

-- PJC (paulchri@msn.com), August 04, 1999.