What Some Programmers Said

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I went to an event in a nearby state yesterday, which was attended by a number of programmers. Naturally I had to be a wisenheimer and go around asking their opinon of Y2K and if their companies were ready. Of course they would only have a general impression as their firms are large and their individual roles within the companies are small. Only two of these people were working on remediation direcy, rather than other things. Probably irrelevant is the fact that most of the programmers were women.

CT Blue Cross woman is pretty sure the company will be ready, although they canot test certain applications until December due to something about the live claims being processed. The company has a large team and the manager is very fastidious. The company is getting rid of freelance programmers so that their own people will have jobs next year.

The woman from Aetna was very confident, but also noted that she is going to buy water and other supplies.

A woman from the state of Texas was happy as a lark because her Y2K program "didn't bomb." Of course they won't really know until January.

A guy from AT&T Solutions seemed thoroughly confident--he's nnot a programmer, but an implementer.

Someone doing remediattion from the State of CT was upbeat.

My friend who does helth care reimbursement applications has done some work for a California hospital using windowing and seems satisfied with what he did.

His sister who is a mainframe programmer--I guess all but my friend are mainframe people--didn't realize much about Y2K until I told her a few months ago. Her husband has bought a generator--he loves gadgets--and they are stocking up...

No panic whatsoever, and little concern...

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWayne@aol.com), September 05, 1999

Answers

Mara-

1. Blue cross....Ready

2. Aetna.........Confident

3. AT&T..........Confident

4. Texas.........Happy 5. Connecticut...Upbeat 6. California....Satisfied Consensus from weekend---No Panic,Little concern!----Mara!...you Wiesenheimer you!! what are you doing next weekend???

-- David Butts (dciinc@aol.com), September 05, 1999.


What no "We're all going to die!"? Maybe the GI's aren't quite as crazy as everyone would have us believe!

-- Rockafeller Skank (rocky2k@x-networks.net), September 05, 1999.

Thanks for this worthwhile posting, Mara, and thanks for affirming the words that have eminated from the many programming friends I have. 'Confidence' and 'high hopes' and personal successes really can't suffice in the search for a wholistic scan of the y2k landscape.

Yes, I appreciate the overly optimistic words of the programmers both you and I know, but oddly enough, they just don't allow me to lean to that side from atop the fence I'm on.

Think I'll wait and see a little longer.

Regards.

-- Bad Company (johnny@shootingstar.com), September 05, 1999.


Well, I think that my little tunnel vision part of the world will be OK. But, what I do is hardly critical. If we tank, there'll be a few less books published next year, a few less CDs produced, and maybe a web-site or two that's not reliable. Big deal.

But, I am worried about the OTHER GUY. The little things, like power. Yea, all looks really rosey on that front lately, but what can I say. I'm a "doomer". I've seen too much wacky programming stuff in my 3+ decades in this business, date related and not...

No panic here, I was born ready...

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

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), September 05, 1999.


Mara,

Your friend's sister is a mainframe programmer and didn't know about Y2k until a few months ago? Did I get that right? Amazing. Is she feeling more confident about it all now, too? Guess I'll stick with Sysman and see how much wacky programming is waiting to run in the real-world test. I keep getting these "critical" Y2k update messages from Microsoft for Win 98, which was supposed to be compliant a year ago, but isn't, yet. Same as those big IBMs Cory loves so much.

-- Gordon (gpconnolly@aol.com), September 05, 1999.



Thanks Mara,

to put this in perspective we have to think globally...

if you haven't already read harry Sculz's newsletter... he has "contacts" :)

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), September 05, 1999.


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