What if the various gov't and industry mouthpieces are mostly telling the truth? That is, what if they are truly unable to attribute significant failures to Y2K, because the permutations of the problem are so complex?

IT folks, who should have known better, wrongly predicted a scary rollover period; it was a relatively mild event. Is this proof that those who know the most about this problem are simply unequal to its solution?

If Y2K was ever real, it will certainly remain so; and it doesn't have to be the END to be a DEBACLE.

-- james hyde (hydesci@gte.net), January 08, 2000

Answers

It was not the software problems that got everyone worried. If that had been all that you heard about you would have laughed, hoping the IRS would crash.

It was the embedded thing that scared everyone because they were supposed to cause failures in every utility, form of thransportation, and supply chain that we depend on for daily life. You did not prepare in the even the IRS computers crashed, or the dates on you water bill were off by 99 years, You prepared in the even that all of the things that "embedded chips" were supposed to be in failed.

The chips did not fail, what you worried about is no longer something you have to prepare against. You are seeing the failures of the things that you would normally laugh about and that do not effect your personal safety.

The snafu's that are surfacing will not bring down your world as you know it.

For those who prepared for the worse, the worse is over.

And stop going to what IT's say or think about the problems you were most concerned about. They no very little or nothing about embedded, so they are as clueless as you in that area.

You don't ask your paperboy about the condition of your car, don't ask IT's about not IT areas.

The IT's that got scared and "headed for the hills" were afraid of something they didn't know, not afraid from knowing what they thought would happen.

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), January 08, 2000.

"For those who prepared for the worse, the worse is over."

The word you're looking for here is "worst."

The computers may be working fine, but it looks like none of us learned anything in school.

-- and by the (way@you're.wrong), January 08, 2000.

Dear Cherri,

I thought that the biggest threat from Y2K was creeping data corruption, not embedded chips. Any thoughts?

-- james hyde (hydesci@gte.net), January 08, 2000.

Cherri; Like I told flint... SO far you have been 75% right, which is a good thing. SO far... If you would be so kind, stick to speaking for YOUR specialty. You did not appreciate it when Ed spoke for YOUR specialty. I don't appreciate it when you speak for MY specialty.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, we can't possibly know (at this point) what the 'snafus' you are seeing now are going impact and we can't possibly (at this point) know how deep that impact will be.

It seems to me that Cherri is willing to stake out her professional reputation in an area where she is not trained... but I am not fully aware of her expertise in IT.

Perhaps you will favor us with your creds in that area, Cherri?

-- Michael Erskine (Osiris@urbanna.net), January 08, 2000.

It could be worse. Cherri could stay and get worser.

-- bratworst (eat@it.cherripie), January 08, 2000.

James:

You wrote:

"IT folks, who should have known better, wrongly predicted a scary rollover period; it was a relatively mild event. Is this proof that those who know the most about this problem are simply unequal to its solution?"

This statement is exactly as I'd feared. While nobody actually took a poll, it would appear that those IT people who predicted calamity were in a tiny minority. Nobody was *ever* able to generate any interest in y2k in any of the many IT-oriented newsgroups. Csy2k, which was *supposed* to be a computer forum, had very few IT people actually contributing, and most of them were debunkers. The few who were not were selling remediation services and doing poorly at it.

Yes, Sysman came up with almost 900 programmer years on this forum. But not all of them were predicting big problems, and not nearly all of them were IT people. The remainder wouldn't add up to even a single medium-sized IT department. And when challenged, even the pessimistic IT people here could not claim their own operation was hosed. It was always the *other* guy.

So the vast majority predicted it correctly, and were clearly equal to the task of making it so. You have to spend some time *outside* the asylum to realize that most people are quite sane, and you need to spent time outside this forum to see that most IT people were calm and optimistic.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 08, 2000.

Dear Flint,

I wish you had a real name, but I appreciate your thoughtful response anyway.

Now: (In 25 words or less) What will develop with respect to Y2K in the coming ten months?

The genius of Winston Churchill (among other gifts) was to recognize a Gathering Storm in Europe, while the rest of Britons clung to a naive complacency. I am also concerned that those who might understand that the "worse" (as Cherri put it) is yet to come are somehow unable to face it psycologically. But I will respect your prediction. Thanks.

-- james hyde (hydesci@gte.net), January 08, 2000.

Looks like my own spelling needs work as well.

-- james hyde (hydesci@gte.net), January 08, 2000.

Why is every one so interestd in spelling if they can't get you for one thing they get you for your spelling.I wonder if the teacher is grading us here on our spelling?

-- teacher (spell@ing.com), January 08, 2000.

james hyde:

??? Not sure I understand. Flint *is* my real name. My email address is also real. I've never posted under anything other than my real name, and never tried to hide anything at all.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 08, 2000.

What if the various gov't and industry mouthpieces are mostly telling the truth? That is, what if they are truly unable to attribute significant failures to Y2K, because the permutations of the problem are so complex? Most of the various gov't and industry mouthpieces are unable to attribute anything to Y2k because they are ignorant, that is, absent any knowledge about programs, programming, embedded chips, computers, etc. Plus, they don't want to attribute anything to Y2k. They don't want to admit that there are any problems at all and won't do so unless it blows up in their faces.

-- Y2kObserver (Y2kObserver@nowhere.com), January 09, 2000.

I don't know that anything has been proved except that the unknown is the unknown. The consequences of Y2K were unknown. There were those who thought the worst outcome would happen and those who did not. Both camps had their share of intelligent people and nuts.

It was a complex problem taken as a whole. When it was broken down and worked on by people who work on the components daily, it was not as complex. Nobody knew for certain what we'd find and how long it would take to fix.

The reason I believe so many of the experts were wrong is because they thought about the remediation in the same way as a project to create/write something new. As a back-room person I can state that what we do every day is very different from what a development group does. You can't apply the same metrics. If you do, you get many of the predictions we had from people whose main experience was development.

It's very difficult to give people a 100% guarantee of anything in this world. Because the Y2K remediation and its results could not be 100% guaranteed and proven before the fact, it left room for people to step in and offer opinions.

Now when many of us have amassed facts and experiences to offset the fears of massive failure, we are doubted. There are some who are still demanding proof that something will/will not happen. I think some people must like to worry.

-- Chris Josephson (chrisj62954@aol.com), January 09, 2000.