who has these questions?

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

Before you all flame me, let me say that I "GI'd" about 1 1/2 years ago. My wife and I have been prepping our family ever since, in terms of paying down debt, doing the garden and canning thing, and stocking a conservative (as opposed to liberal *funny*)pantry.

That said, I have a couple questions for the forum:

(1) The company where I work has been in place here since 1837. Much smarter people than I are running this place and have a much more vested interest than I in keeping the place going. How can it be possible that people with MBA's and PhD's would fail in recognizing such a potential hazard to the business? It leads me to believe that most fears I have are overstated.

(2) I've been doing my own ongoing research for the past 18 months. Occasionally, I'll take a look back and re-read some of the discussions that had taken place here 6 or 12 months ago. One theme seems to be recurring: many "doomers" latch on to every piece of "bad" news like a fly on shit, but refuse to accept and "good" news, dismissing it out-of-hand as "self reporting" or "government coverup" or flat out "lies". Am I the only one here who would feel a little more comfortable being a "doomer" if more of us would be willing to keep and open mind to both kinds of news?

-- am I the only one (Just@wondering.why), October 04, 1999

Answers

Only one,

(1) the French military was absolutely convinced that the Maginot Line would protect them from German invasion. They knew a lot more about military strategy than the average layman who might have questioned what they were doing. But the French military had never faced the concept of "blitzkrieg." As for the people running your company, what field of study is their MBA and Ph.D? Computer Science, software engineering? And a very simple question: what percentage of all the IT projects in your company, during the past 5-10 years, have been finished on time?

(2) Absolutely, we should keep an open mind about both good news, and bad news. But as our beloved former leader, Ronald Reagan, once suggested: "Trust, but verify." One of the reasons the doomers are skeptical is that they have seen little, if any, independent verification of the optimistic statements being made by companies and gov't agencies about their Y2K status.

Ed

-- Ed Yourdon (HumptyDumptyY2K@yourdon.com), October 04, 1999.


Having an 'open nmind' does not mean accepting things, particularly the statements of people, at face value. One of the reasons that many people here dismiss the 'good news reports' is because there is no way in a logistical sense that you can go from 20% to 90% 'compliance' in a year on large systems. Ain't gonna happen. Alot of these stories/statements come from pointy haired managers whose own report stream contradicts the latest 'good news'. There is a tremendous information campaign designed to obfuscate the true condition of systems. You have read the statements by the 'authorities' here so that's not news is it? I do not doubt that people are 'working real hard' on the problem. The question is not whether they would like to think that all will be well, but whether we started in time, assigned enough resources, have good enough contingency plans, etc.

Your company is not a stand alone enterprise is it? It doesn't matter if your company comes through perfectly. What about everyone else. At what point (20, 30, 40% of companies seize up) does it take to wipe out large sectors of our economy? No one knows. Think about your customers and suppliers. Think about their efforts. Think about the forgeign companies/nations. Think oil.

People are people. The educational training they have attained does not prevent them from making bad decisions. Sometimes it is a matter of the corporate culture. The real question should be: 'Did we wake up in time to save enough systems and companies to prevent a breakdown of the economy'? I don't know.

The use and abuse of language by the leaders of our culture does not reassure me. Just this alone should give great pause.

Its the whole, not just the parts. This gives me pause.

Its the world not the United States of America. This gives me pause.

I'd rather be safe than sorry.

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), October 04, 1999.


Only one,

Not only do I question all the un-validated "good" news, but I refuse to believe what the government keeps telling us. We have been lied to so much it is no longer possible to put trust in anything they tell us. No one knows just what is going to happen for sure, but the gov't. keeps telling us that everything is fine. How do they know? Why don't they give us credit for at least trying to be prepared for the unknown. Yes, I have questioned, too, but the more the gov't claims "everything is OK, don't worry" I make another trip to the store and growl a little more at the hype.

-- winna (??@??.com), October 04, 1999.


Am I,

1) ..... Much smarter people than I are running this place and have a much more vested interest than I in keeping the place going.

This is the very old "they won't let it fail," argument. Businesses run by much smarter people than I fail every day, simply because those 'smarter' people made a mistake.

How can it be possible that people with MBA's and PhD's would fail in recognizing such a potential hazard to the business? It leads me to believe that most fears I have are overstated.

I don't know your level of fears, so can't comment on whether or not they're overstated.

But, ask yourself this question: The year 2000 problem was recognized long, long ago. The most efficient remediation process would have been a gradual one -- fix the problems over a long period of time, with remediation being performed any time changes were made to a program. It probably would have required relatively modest incremental effort, the testing of modules and sections of code would have been done in conjunction with the normal maintenance testing, and resources would now be available for work in other areas.

Now, these MBAs and PhDs chose to ignore the problem instead. The horrendous numbers you see being spent by corporations and companies worldwide are the result. Why would these people have taken the expensive "crash program" way out if they recognized the problem?

Unless, of course, some of them recognized it, calculated their retirement date, and said, "Not on my watch!"

(2) .....Am I the only one here who would feel a little more comfortable being a "doomer" if more of us would be willing to keep and open mind to both kinds of news?

No, but I would also feel a little more comfortable accepting good news were it not for demonstrated lying on the part of those proclaiming it. Witness the federal agencies that were caught lying, witness even the poster child for the federal effort, Social Security, being pronounced 100% ready a long time ago, by no less than William Jefferson Clinton, and then sending out 32,000 letters with an obvious year 2000 date error. The error caused nothing more than embarassment, but illustrates that the 100% number was an 'error.'

Ed is right. It's easy to proclaim either compliance or readiness. Most companies don't even bother with the C word any more since the public has been conditioned to accept 'readiness.' There is no legal penalty for declaring such a state. The financial penalty for making the statement, "Hey, guys, we aren't going to make it," can be severe.

So, which statement would you make if you were the CEO of a Fortune 100 company?

In the best of all worlds we would see a rapidly escalating number of compliance reports that have been verified by independent sources and that witness the end-to-end testing of the systems involved. We won't get that, will we?

-- de (delewis@XOUTinetone.net), October 04, 1999.


(1) Sounds a lot like the Titanic. She was the biggest & best of her age. She was new. She was expensive. She was unsinkable. Smart guys had designed her, & smart guys were steering her. Several of the company brass, & the world's richest man, were on board. There was no way in the world that she could sink on her maiden voyage. THEY would never allow such a thing to happen. It was simply unthinkable.

(2) See (1).

-- keep rowing till (your@arms.hurt), October 04, 1999.



Only One--

You are not the only one. At least there are two of us, and I suspect, many more. My own pattern of study, preparation and more study on the issue reflects yours almost exactly. I too have noted the tendency to leap on every piece of bad news as evidence of Y2K bugs, and the almost automatic denial and disparagment of good news.

I like this board, however, because there are some sharp minds here who parse every bit of anonymous information for validity and consistency. Personally, I hope that Flint and others of the Polly point-of-view continue to post and offer their own critics of incoming news and information as we near the end. I want to hear it all.

If it's any consolation, we'll find out one way or another in 90 days or so.

-- William in Dallas (bcheek@onramp.net), October 04, 1999.


Good news ---

Lots of money has been spent. It has had a big impact.

Many multinational corporations, whether or not they are "compliant", but because they have spent the money well, will make it through rollover.

The U.S. energy grid will probably hold.

U.S. banks, taken as a group with respect to their internal operations, will probably make it.

U.S. telecom will probably hold.

The bad news? That this is the extent of the GOOD news. And that very little of it has anything to do with international readiness.

Now, with respect to your other point, which has been made on this forum repeatedly (and understandably).

First, many have perceived the danger. Even so:

Few people have a deep understanding of software engineering within large SOFTWARE organizations (> 1,000), from first requirements through maintenance. Programmers, as such, don't. Managers, as such, don't. CEOs don't. Fewer still understand how this intersects with executive management, CIO level and above (that is, from first-hand contact and experience). And yet fewer still comprehend the relation between corporations and societal infrastructures relative to technology.

Most executives are profoundly uncomfortable with technologists. They feel insecure and ignorant (a position they despise themselves for) and, in turn, are more-or-less adversarial AT ROOT because they consider techies to be basically blue-collar nerds who cleverly found a way to grab the world by its short-hairs (we did, BTW and Y2K is the biggest instance of all). The notion, in 1996 or 1997, that they must now "stop the business in place" for 18 months to fix Y2K was repulsive. Even so, some did it -- but not enough.

With all due respect to Cory Hamasaki (who played a huge role in my becoming a GI), he doesn't understand the full systemic nature of this. Gary North doesn't (and doesn't claim to). Ed Yourdon does. Jaeger doesn't. Capers Jones probably does. I do (flame away, forum pollies). There are others, not necessarily household names (I'm not, obviously), but not very many.

This doesn't make our prognostications infallible. Far from it. The matrix I discuss above is so complex and ill-understood that even the most experienced are guessing. Y2K has exposed a profound need for a fresh discipline to arise that will approach just these issues for the sake of our future as a culture.

That discipline will span compsci, sw engr, biz mgmt, political and cultural studies, world finance, community, spirituality and, in general, the "ecology of large systems." Yes, I know a few thinkers have covered some of this ground but they are off-the-beaten track. To those of you who fancy political liberty on this forum, studies such as these will be CRITICAL to making a 21st-century argument for the wisdom embedded in the U.S. founding (ie, why relatively small, private, accountable and free communities that have well-defined but non-coercive "interfaces" to one another work better than technocratic tyannies).

I am certain of this: IF Y2K is a BITR, a result I currently consider impossible, understanding how THAT came to pass will STILL require enormous study. The fact that pollies will claim it meant Y2K was a "hoax" or that the "system" can fix itself will remain nonsense.

In other words, what I am certain of, is that Y2K "ought to" result, at this stage, in at least a >6 result. If, as Ed puts it above but reversing his argument, the "Maginot Line" holds, it WON'T be because the French generals were brilliant. It will be because of an unexpected (and wonderful, DUH) characteristic of the Maginot Line that was unperceived by ALL, including those who conceived the Line.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), October 04, 1999.


I agree about keeping an open mind. I maintain that I would much prefer not to have the kind of problems that are possible...... way out of my comfort zone. However, have you noticed or is it just me, how many times you read 98 or 99% complete? Seems many places have been stuck there for months on end. I am also amazed at how deadlines are pushed back as if it were nothing.

The real risk is not preparing. And I guarantee you at this point, not only will the physical preparations benefit us but the mental preparation will benefit us greatly also.

-- Norm (Prez22@aol.com), October 04, 1999.


---

Unfortunately the lying became epidemic.

And now only the purest of sources can be believed.

---

-- no talking please (breadlines@soupkitchen.gov), October 04, 1999.


If I want to read optimistic reports about Y2k I can find them anywhere without any difficulty at all--newspaper, TV, radio, magazines, many fora, on and on. If I want to read about the other side of the picture, then I come here--one of relatively few such sources. I DO want to read about the other side because of my own and my husband's knowledge and experience, not only in the IT field but also in government (federal, state and local in many different regions of the country), people and life in general.

Unless you go 'way overboard beyond your means, you won't suffer by overpreparing and, even if you are never in any type of disaster, you will feel secure in the knowledge that you can cope better than the vast majority if anything happens. However, you may suffer from underpreparing.

It has been said that those who were flooded out by Floyd wouldn't have gained anything by having supplies stashed because their stash would have been spoiled. Tell that to the thousands who were not flooded but who are near enough (or in) the affected areas to suffer still without power, clean water, and regular food deliveries. One such couple, whose horses were yesterday brought up to Durham to clean pasture and regular vet care, said that living in the affected areas, even though in a dry home, was like living in a remote part of a third-world country. They are VERY happy about the relatively few supplies they had stashed before Floyd hit.

It's not just Y2K.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), October 04, 1999.



You really do have to understand that each company is different. Some have a culture of fear, some have a culture of innovation, some have a culture of helpfulness, and some are inhabited by vipers. If you really want to know which companies stand the best chance, find out if computer programmers that have worked there consider the company to be a "sweat shop" or, the other end of the spectrum, to have achieved SEI Level III compliance. The sweat shops are going down big time.

-- Amy Leone (leoneamy@aol.com), October 04, 1999.

Troll anyone?

-- nothere nothere (notherethere@hotmail.com), October 04, 1999.

Amy -- You are correct about the importance of "culture" in organizations and the way in which culture (for sw) intersects with engineering professionalism, or doesn't. Regrettably, THOSE cultures, the good, the bad and the ugly, are now intersecting with our larger culture of deceitful litigiousness, which is one of the reasons why the published data is so useless for gauging Y2K impacts.

The sweat shops are going down. Unfortunately, even some of the good orgs may go down with them.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), October 04, 1999.


Old Git is absolutely right. It's not just Y2K. Preparing for Y2K has made me realize how vulnerable I was before, and never thought about it. We can't prepare for everything that could possibly happen, but the more prepared we are in general, the more severe situations we can cope with. I will never forget a picture I saw during the massive floods of the Mississippi river years back. This farmer had sandbagged around his house and barn. The sandbagging had been started many years before by his father, and the son kept it up year after year, for no 'apparent' reason. The picture showed a dry house and barn completely surrounded by water. That's preparing taken to a level most of us will probably never reach, but the alternative to all those years of work would have been to lose everything. A good segue to my second point. As Ed said, it's not the risk, it's the stakes.

As far as (1), as said before, smart people make mistakes also. There's smart and then there's sensible. Not the same thing. It takes a certain kind of mind, I think, to see the big picture, the connections, the reasons why we might be facing some really bad problems even if all the smart people in the world are all working hard on this problem. We know many organizations started late. All those smart people with all those vested interests did not get started on time.

As far as (2), I've seen how 'news' travels through organizations. I work as a software engineer (not on any Y2K related work). My current project is supposed to be done by the end of the year. The lead engineer keeps coming over to me and saying "I don't think we can do everything marketing wants by the end of the year. They're just not going to get it." Does he tell his boss this? No. Does the boss report that the project won't be done on time? No. Do I believe all the good news reports? No. Especially all the ones that say 'We are making great progress, and we EXPECT to be ready by the end of the year.'

One final point (I know I've gone on much too long). I put myself at risk if I choose to take good news at face value, and don't prepare for worse than the good news might indicate. The opposite is not true. For any preparedness minded person, this translates into a natural skepticism of good news.

-- Bingo (ecsloma@pronetisp.net), October 04, 1999.


Only one.

There are some very sane responses here. As Old Git says, "it is not just Y2K". None of us live in a geography that is free from natural disasters. For many of us, including me, there is a level of comfort about being prepared to take care of myself. For perhaps the first time in my life, I am in a good position to deal with a man-made or natural disaster.

But, am I in a good position to deal with Y2K? It all depends. I, too, would prefer to believe some of the good news that is shared. My technical background is in voice and data communications. (Oh, by the way, ATT says they will be compliant, but not sure about other international or domestic telecommunications companies--Gary North 10/4 quoting an article listed in today's Computer Currents.) I am not a mainframe, PC embedded system, or software expert. I do respect the linkages, complexity, and enormous undertaking to achieve just readiness. Billions of dollars are being spent to fix this issue. When one pays attention to what the likes of Ed Yourdon and Capers Jones have to say about the complexity of software projects, and the propensity for late, incomplete projects, I do not believe that everything will be fixed. The devil is in the details in terms of what was missed or fixed incorrectly.

You were given good advice. Look hard at what your company produces. Look harder at their own track record for complex software projects. Maybe, just maybe you work for a firm that has it together. I hope so.

But, and this is the big but, what about everyone/everything else? What about the issues of cascading cross faults in the global financial world? What about the price of oil? What about the import export ratio for this country? What about the issues of trap doors in software fixes? We import more than just Chilean grapes and sneakers. This fast spinning world has become a very small place.

Read everything, form your own opinions, and take precautions you think are right for your family. It sounds like you have already "erred" on the conservative. Either way, you are setting a good example for your children.

-- Nancy (wellsnl@hotmail.com), October 04, 1999.



Only One,

Nope, I always have the same questions, especially number 2. Furthermore, I think that people who are a little too eager to get all gleeful at the latest bad news, go a long way towards making preppers look like maniacs. If it is possible to put the blame on others for lack of preparation, then I think those doomers who do that, are every bit as guilty of keeping pollies from getting it, as is Koskinen and company.

That being said, however, my feelings about preparations are this: Just because someone abuses accurate information, does not make it any less accurate. If someone posts verifiable evidence that this or that part of the system is going to crash and burn, it does not become a lie, simply because someone starts hooting and stomping their feet and screaming, "See! They're all a buncha liars!!!". I don't care about the lies and I don't care about anyone's preconceived notion about who the liars are. What I want is the truth, in as much as it is possible to know it. There will be plenty of time for figuring out who was, with malice and forethought, lying and who was telling the truth, later.

But if all of the gloomiest predictions are true, and you are not prepared, then you will never have the luxury of being able to go after the liars.

Personally, after all this turmoil, and despite my tendency to not be an extremely violent person, I won't get too choked up about seeing the head of anyone who was knowingingly spreading BS (regardless of what contingency they represent) nailed to a wall, for all to spit at. But later...later...later.

-- Bokonon (bok0non@my-Deja.com), October 04, 1999.


CONNECT THE DOTS, CONNECT THE DOTS, CONNECT THE DOTS! I'm reminded of an attorney I asked about the Y2k issue. He said he didn't think it was a problem, after all, he set the clock on his computer ahead to 2000 and he didn't have any problems with it. Talk about putting the blinders on! We live in a "global" world and not just in the US of A. If you look only at your own company that just might be Y2k compliant and your own little world, you are missing the boat. My impression of the "doomers" is that they are wisely looking at the interconnectedness of entities which means the weakest link can negatively affect the strongest. Wise men and women look beyond themselves.

-- Jim (jwworden@efortress.com), October 04, 1999.

Back when I was an 'Investment Banker/Venture Capitalist' of sorts, there was a very simple rule concerning software investments: zero investment until the product was 'done'.

One reason for this was that we knew we were not smart enough to determine if a product was really "99% done". We were not alone in our assessment, as I cannot tell you how many times, at venture conferences and the like, colleagues confirmed to me that their approach was similar or identical.

Show me a product that works or come back when you have one.

I know that software is never really 'done' in that versions follow versions. But the product had to do what it was supposed to do well enough to be sold before we put $ in.

Like all rules, this one was made to be broken. That is why almost every venture capitalist has a story about the project that was "99% done" and, despite *several* rounds of private funding, was *never* completed.

One time is all it takes to learn the lesson. We may have missed some opportunities, but so what. The key is to avoid as many wipeouts as possible.

This is a long-winded way of explaining why, even if *every* y2k project were now "99% done" (or even half 'done' and half '99% done') I would still be prepping extensively. The joke among venture capitalists is that software projects are "*always* 99% done". It's a joke over a drink while reminiscing, but it's certainly no joke when the welfare of your family hangs on the completion of that 'last 1%'.

I know there are reasons to believe that y2k remediation is not as difficult as creating an entirely new product. Nonetheless, the fact that this project is occuring simultaneously in every (large) entity in every country throughout the world far outweighs that consideration.

Add to this the fact that these programs/entities *must* interact with each other smoothly in order to achieve success.

I do not claim to understand the systemic nature of y2k because, although I have attempted to understand it, I find that it is impossible for me to really get my mind aroud. It's just too big.

My conclusion: no one knows what is going to happen, except that it is guaranteed to be very bad. Y2k cannot be fixed.

-- TrustHim (ItComes@Soon.now), October 04, 1999.


The only place you can find a well-reasoned argument by a polly is on this forum. (I know, some would argue not even here.) The outside world is completely oblivious. Through the months I have talked to CEOs of software consluting companies, senior partners at brokerage houses, Wall St. economists, computer scientists, and countless Joe Six-pack types (e.g., the Otis elevator guy, the financial aid officer at my son's college). One theme has gone unbroken: the pollys cannot hold up their end of a good debate. There is so much "ring of truth" to the severe predictions and so much spin from the other side, I don't believe there is now a person in the world who could cause me to change my mind before the experiment is complete. (If, for example, EY said it would be fine, I would probably start looking for the tell- tale scar somewhere on his cranium.

Bottom line: reading the optimistic reports does absolutely nothing for me at this time.

-- Dave (aaa@aaa.com), October 04, 1999.


Only one,

1) "...How can it be possible that people with MBA's and PhD's would fail in recognizing such a potential hazard to the business?"...

It is a very rare organization, where ANY of the people running the place have any experience in getting code written properly to perform a function - They are not equipped by intellect, expertise, experience and education to recognize "such a potential hazard to business." In a few good organizations they recognize this, find people who are equipped and depend on their knowledge and judgement. These organizations started a long time ago.

(2) "...Am I the only one here who would feel a little more comfortable being a "doomer" if more of us would be willing to keep and open mind to both kinds of news?"

Don't be a doomer, be a realist. Chicken little saying "the sky is falling", is just running around squaking. Ed Yourdon saying "One of the reasons the doomers are skeptical is that they have seen little, if any, independent verification of the optimistic statements being made by companies and gov't agencies about their Y2K status." is ralistic information to be considered. Technology projects without IV&V are usually hosed up if they aren't really simple.

There is probably a lot of suspicion here because complex technology projects don't get a status of "all finished, on time, tested and certified".

Let's say you have a reasonably large system that manages people or supplies or money. It talks to three other systems. You decide to switch julian date in this system from 5 digits to 7 digits (could do this in a y2k project).

You break the project into pieces, decide what to do at the interfaces to other systems, get GOOD staff and work on it for a couple of years, integrate any maintenance changes done to the production system over that time, get the approach to data conversion worked out an put it together for system testing.

THEN you find a couple of dozen maybe thirty problems (if you did good testing). Schedule is pushing you (your late). You are going to triage those 30 problems, to the ones you have to fix - no workarounds, can't live with the errors, and you are going to fix those, do some more testing, find a couple more, maybe fix some of the new problems. Then you are going to deploy that, get back some new problems and have to fix some of them in a hurry and deploy a patch.

Then if this is a Y2K project, you stand a reasonable chance of using "fix on failure" for anything you missed.

That's what good news in reality looks like to me. "All finished, on time, tested and certified" looks like spin.

-- ng (cantprovideemail@mone.com), October 04, 1999.


""Attention Discovery shuttle astronauts--before lift off all of the PHds.,engineers,highly educated people that have a vested interest in you absolute success would like to wish you a great journey".

Ready for liftoff!!!!

-- David Butts (dciinc@aol.com), October 04, 1999.


CONNECT THE DOTS, CONNECT THE DOTS, CONNECT THE DOTS!

Good point. But, to understand the situation, that's only one step. The next step is to "disconnect" the dots, and then to think about the implications. Not that they necessarily follow. But sheer assertion that they do not follow is not enough: it is simply the refusal (or the inability) to think beyond the immediate and the obvious.

This requires intuition. The Pollyannas seem either to lack intuition or to refuse to use it. Now, intuition is not infallible, but it is nonetheless necessary for understanding. Facts aren't enough. :-)

-- Lane Core Jr. (elcore@sgi.net), October 04, 1999.


Like they say around NASA: "give 'em an inch and they'll take a...kilometer?"

-- Spidey (in@jam.sliderule), October 04, 1999.

Big Dog,

you wrote:"With all due respect to Cory Hamasaki (who played a huge role in my becoming a GI), he doesn't understand the full systemic nature of this. Gary North doesn't (and doesn't claim to). Ed Yourdon does. Jaeger doesn't. Capers Jones probably does. I do..."

Can you explain your criteria? I'm not sure I see the distinction you want to make.

-- PH (ag3@interlog.com), October 04, 1999.


Every one of my colleagues has a PhD. PhDs are over-rated. I know -- KNOW -- guys with Nobel prizes who do not display particularly high levels of common sense. By the way, how about all those "rocket scientists" who blew the old metric conversion on the Mars probe? How about all those Nobel-prize winning economists at Harvard who finally conceded the "new paradigm" in the summer of 1929? I've convinced myself that the "big brains" of society are indeed a very highly specialized bunch who often cannot see their noses in front of their faces. OT-Is it just me or does everybody wish this whole catastrophe would just happen so that we could get on with our lives (or after- lives)?

-- Dave (aaa@aaa.com), October 04, 1999.

After all the crap that's been said and done,the only two companies in which I'm willing to place my life are mossberg and glock.

-- zoobie (zoobiezoob@yahoo.com), October 04, 1999.

Dave--

'Every one of my colleagues has a PhD. PhDs are over-rated.'

Where's yours?

-- long years (insaltmines@getting.dr), October 04, 1999.


Zoobie--Let't not forget Remington, Winchester, Smith & Wesson, and the manufacturers of ammo. Think water and ammo and lots of it!

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), October 04, 1999.

Analytical intelligence (deductive reasoning--the ability to test and verify or negate a previous hypothesis) is more prized and economically valuable in today's world. You can have a very high IQ and/or a PhD and be brilliantly analytical. In fact, you are more likely to succeed if you "think inside the box" because (bottom line) it is safer. This type of mind does not go out on a limb by uncovering evidence that is easily obtainable to reach conclusions that are already expected. Analysis is less prone to errors and self-delusion.

Synthetic intelligence (useful and accurate inductive reasoning--the ability to generate the important hypotheses in the first place) is less easy to quantify but is probably more rare. Attempts at synthesis are more often than not flawed except in only the truly gifted. (Synthesis is a process often felled by popular opinion and self-delusion.) So a combination of both analytic and synthethic intelligence is probably extremely rare.

You're not going to be very popular if you hypothesize that we're are on a sinking ship, even if you turn out to be correct.

That's why you don't find many "smart" people converting to GI. They are neck high in work in their own world, doing a great job at what they do but perhaps to the exclusion of the outside world.

-- coprolith (coprolith@rocketship.com), October 04, 1999.


My father-in-law had a great saying for this: "For every three engineers, you need a farmer for common sense." (He, of course, had been a farmer!)

-- Ann M. (HisMckids@aol.com), October 04, 1999.

I'm uncomfortable with the notion of verification, from both sides. Of course it's true that if someone makes a claim of readiness that nobody else can evaluate in any way, it's impossible to judge it. On the other hand, we can hardly expect a *qualified* IV&V industry to spring up within a year or two. It has never existed, and the validators would need to be at *least* as good as those who wrote and maintain the code. Where would they develop such knowledge?

Instead, we have a lot of tools that have been developed to identify date usage in many different computer languages, many different known databases, and even hueristically (looking for things that "kind of resemble" possible date data or date manipulation). In the majority of big companies, these tools have been put to heavy use to speed up the remediation process. Those tools are as close to IV&V as we'll ever come in practice.

Yes, if the government (or tradition?) had required all along that all software development projects be subjected to detailed outside audit, we'd have the process of IV&V in place. Now, we should probably ask what tools were used and what their results were, how much coverage their testing had, whether a time machine was used, whether remediated code is back in production, etc. Ultimately, of course, we cannot verify the answers to any of these questions.

No organization wants to look bad, but neither do they wish to suffer big losses later that could have been avoided.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 04, 1999.


It's been pointed out before, but it bears repeating on this question. There exist corporate executives who are simply incapable of deciding to spend enormous sums of money, perhaps to show severely reduced profits for several quarters, for no apparent result other than an opportunity to stay in business.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), October 04, 1999.

"It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value." Anon

-- quoter (quoter@quoterrr.xcom), October 05, 1999.

Flint,

Suggesting that the initial lack of existence of an IV&V industry misses that there was an IV&V company in England about a year and a half ago that was doing this for Brit companies, (WISH I could remember the name) and they found that 40% or so of the companies that came to them for review of REMEDIATED systems had showstoppers still in the systems.

It also misses that, just because there were no compiler validators for ADA as the .mil people were migrating to ADA in the early 80's, ther was no way to validate the compilers. The validator projects ran concurrently, and at the end were available for validation of the compilers. I know about this one because my brother had a piece of 2 of the 3 compiler validators and one of the compilers for the 3 .mil's that were migrating.

The Parallel is that there are people out there who have proven the capability to do IV&V, they are begging for work. There has been very little demand.

Chuck (who still hasn't learned to spell)

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), October 05, 1999.


Chuck:

Good point! While those few IV&V outfits that exist (are they specialized?) would be swamped if IV&V were SOP, it also seems to be the case that organizations are handling remediation like they would any other inhouse maintenance project. Yes, some farm remediation out to consultants (sometimes overseas), but for most it's been described as just another maintenance project, like adding a big enhancement to existing code. From what I've seen, for most big companies remediation hasn't ever even been thier single largest IT project during its lifespan.

And remediation seems straightforward enough that I find it hard to believe that such a high percentage of organizations have seriously underestimated the work required to at least remain functional. And so many are now winding down their remediation efforts that I'd *also* have to believe that they still don't grasp the meaning of what they've been doing, to be pessimistic about it.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 05, 1999.


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