[To all those clueless, stupid pollies who say Y2k was/is a hoax]

Fair Use: For educational and research purposes only

Reader Response: Y2K preparations were important

Updated 10:25 AM ET

January 5, 2000

By Robert C. Eickwort, IS Administrator,

Special to ZDNet

**** A ZDNN Reader responds to John Dvorak's column: Y2K Cuckoo Clocks" ****

http://news.excite.com/news/zd/000105/10/reader-response-y2

If you had actually spoken with some of the people involved in fixing and preventing Y2K bugs, rather than relying on mass media for information, you might have a better idea of what actually has been done over the past couple of years so that everything *would* run smoothly.

Yes, the mass media tends to hyperbole and sensationalism; so what else is new? All they did is turn "what might have happened" into "what still might happen." And to be fair, if it weren't for the media's bringing the millenium bug into the public eye, perhaps organizations wouldn't have been so diligent about fixing the problems ahead of time.

I for one am glad my colleagues and I spent hundreds of hours upgrading systems during weekends and evenings over the last couple of years, rather than having to stop all business for the first week of the year while we frantically apply patches *after* finding out what happens.

It would have been interesting to have had a "control group," a country that made no Y2K preparations whatsoever. Then we could validly point to it and say, "This is what would have happened if we hadn't fixed things," one way or the other.

Alas, no one was willing to volunteer. I wonder why that is?

--Robert C. Eickwort Location: San Francisco, Calif. Occupation: IS Administrator

====================================================

-- Mr. Helpful (without@email.anywhere), January 05, 2000

Answers

After all the Y2K patches and upgrades I've had to do as part of my sysadmin job the past year or two, I'd argue strongly that the importance of resolving Y2K issues was not a hoax. A lot of work went into making Y2K a non-event. BUT, the argument that I (and presumably other non-GI's) have, is that the concept that American society would end as the result of computer malfunctions was and is totally, profoundly absurd.

-- Just (anotherbuckeye@columbus.org), January 05, 2000.