Are Y2K problems simply "business as usual"?

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Recently, Cory Hamasaki wrote about how IBM is STILL, at this late date, releasing software patches to fix Y2K for their archaic mainframes that apparently still run much of the world. He also wrote that application of these patches takes a fair amount of work, requires a fair amount of testing, and takes a fair amount of TIME. The bottom line conclusion is that there is no way that these IBM mainframes will be entering the 21st century fixed for Y2K.

Our usual gang of pollies -- Hoffy, Flint, Anita S. -- see no problem with this. The fact that a computer with a problem that will occur at a certain point in time will enter that point in time without benefit of being fixed is completely shrugged off because, get this, computers with problems due to unapplied patches nevertheless do work for us everyday, and somehow we simply just make due.

I can only assume that the "problems" that computers run with today must be very minor, if not innocuous. I can only assume that the polly gang is essentially judging Y2K problems to be of the same caliber.

This is what I believe could be called "The Last Polly Defense": that Y2K won't be fixed, but who cares, it was never that bad a problem anyway. But what do I know, I just rule a dumb country and watch mudwrestling videos.

Can anyone shed more light on this elusive topic????

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), September 04, 1999

Answers

I have a theory about pollys, which is that they are such quotidian souls that they simply do not have the imagination necessary to conceive of the global network of computers as a kind of organic entity that can get sick and die if enough germs attack it simultaneously. In other words, they just don't get it.

-- cody (cody@y2ksurvive.com), September 04, 1999.

they make me so mad I need to take a mudbath just to relax,I get so pent up.

-- mudgirl (mudgirl@aol.com), September 04, 1999.

KoS,

Getting the IBM Y2K PTF question into perspective is a sufficiently non trivial task that I would recommend trying to maintain discussion of it in one thread, and lately it seems that the "IBM Patches and Bank compliance" thread would be the best candidate.

Meanwhile, has Corine 1 changed her name to Mudgirl?

Jerry

-- Jerry B (skeptic76@erols.com), September 04, 1999.


Alright, Your Highness, it's halftime of the IRISH vs Meeesh-again, so I'll respond. (14-9, IRISH, in case anyone's interested)

PTF's are business as usual. To quote someone, mainframes do the "heavy lifting" of IS, and run the world.

PTF's are constantly being issued for IBM systems. If issuing PTF's meant the systems did not work, nothing would ever be done.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-deja.com), September 04, 1999.


See, KOS was right, Hoffy doesn't see any problems with this. Big surprise!

-- Disgusted (hoffy@pollyextraodinaire.com), September 04, 1999.


Being one that runs one of the "other" IBM OSes (VSE), I haven't followed the details of this round of PTFs. I did look at some of the descriptions, and most of the stuff didn't deal with the core OS, but the "utility" programs that ship with it. Myself, I have much more confidence in the mainframe OSes than I do in, Windows/NT or 2000 for example. Even so, I'm not worried about the OS. It's those damned applications that bother me.

It is true that very little is "perfect" in the digital world. If we didn't have bugs, many programmers wouldn't be working! There are the big, important bugs, that everybody jumps on to fix. There are the annoying bugs, that get put on a list, and get fixed eventually. There are trivial bugs, that may never get fixed.

Y2K will cause the same types of problems. How many, and how critical, is why we're all, well, most of us, here...

Tick... Tock... <:00=

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


I don't know much about fixing mainframes, maybe shoving a book of matches under one corner would work. If the match book trick doesn't work, civilization will collapse, and the babes will be in hot massage oil for sure.

-- CS Man (csm@man.com), September 04, 1999.

It's true that software is always full of bugs. It's also true that you learn to work around them. No different for desktop users, really. You do something that crashes Word or Excel or Windows, and you don't just give up and say "I can't use this buggy software!". You just learn not to do the thing that crashes it.

On the other hand, I feel that a lot of the programmer pollys are like garage mechanics told there will be a recall of millions of cars. They say "no problem, we do them all the time!" Then the rework instructions come in from the manufacturer, and it says "move the steering wheel from left to right. Find a way." Not exactly the kind of trivial fix they had in mind...

In other words, most bugs fixed by support programmers are minor omissions in a correct design. Find a workaround that avoids that piece of code, or put a local patch in, and you are OK. Fixing a design flaw like widening all date fields is out of their league.

We'll see.

-- You Know... (notme@nothere.com), September 04, 1999.


Corrinne 1 = Porky in Cellblock D = cast of dozens of polly trolls

-- shhhhh (dontTell@whisper.com), September 04, 1999.

Jerry, it was in fact because of "bank compliance" and other stuff that I wanted to just focus on this one aspect: What happens when Jan 1 comes and these mainframes have not had their patches/PTFs applied?

Again, its clearly a matter of the severity. If the OS croaks (fat chance, say most of you so far), that would obvously be pretty severe. If an application croaks, ditto. If the application keeps on chugging but produces WRONG stuff, which nobody (e.g., banks) notices right off, that could spell disaster once the SHTF. If, if, if....

mudgirl: You sound exotic, beautiful and hot. How big is your mudbathtub?

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), September 04, 1999.


Cody, sorry KOS

I'm not readin' another thing til I find out what quotidian means, and since you used it in a sentence already, I won't ask.

Polly want a cracker that fell in the mud ?

-- Dick Tionary (big words@scareme.com), September 04, 1999.


quo-tid-i-an a. daily; n. thing returning daily, esp. forever [L. quotidie, daily].

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), September 04, 1999.

>quo7tid7i7an

Pronunciation: kwO-'ti-dE-&n

Function: adjective

Etymology: Middle English cotidian, from Middle French, from Latin

quotidianus, cotidianus, from quotidie every day, from quot (as) many

as + dies day -- more at DEITY

Date: 14th century

1 : occurring every day

2 a : belonging to each day : EVERYDAY b :

COMMONPLACE, ORDINARY

- quotidian noun<

S.O.B.

-- sweetolebob (buffgun@hotmail.com), September 04, 1999.


KOS,

Thanks for the def. Definitely one for the "Scrabble" list. Now, where were we?

-- Dick T. (big words@scareme.com), September 04, 1999.


KOS, watch what you're calling a dumb country, Buster.

-- Honked (fond@of.madrid), September 04, 1999.


Sorry, dude! ("Never piss off a peasant", as my Dad used to say.)

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), September 04, 1999.

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