From John Whitley's post of January 8, entitled "KANSAS CITY STAR:'Things went well because people worked hard' ":

" 'I don't think we've learned anything from this,' said Peter de Jager on a scratchy phone line.....In many cases [programmers] ....used a technique called "windowing" that tricked computers into thinking it was the correct century."

" But windowing is only a Band-Aid on a broken arm, de Jager said. And it is exactly the kind of thinking that got us into this mess in the first place."

-- Peter Errington (petere@ricochet.net), January 09, 2000

Answers

Well, heck. Surely these old systems that have been patched up will be replaced within the next ten to twenty years with new, totally-compliant versions, right? Surely they will. Won't they?

Won't they?

-- I'm Here, I'm There (I'm Everywhere@so.beware), January 09, 2000.

Here, there and everywhere:

naaaaahhhhhh, remember the old saw, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

IOW, anything that made it through Y2K rollover doesn't need "fixing" now, and likely won't be until it breaks or becomes so obsolete as to not play the latest updated version of Solitaire.

-- Beached Whale (beached_whale@hotmail.com), January 09, 2000.

De Jager is correct: Windowing is the result of the same mindset that created the problem originally. We run more of a risk every time we do this. Getting away with it adds to the problem because a bad habit is a bad habit. We've created a permanent mess, at the very least, for data exchange programs (between systems). For fifty years these programs didn't need date remediation, and now every time one of the parties decides to go four digit or change their windowing parms, they will have to rewrite the exchange programs. That is probably one small example of the ditch we are digging for ourselves.

-- paul leblanc (bronyaur@gis.net), January 09, 2000.

Peter is correct, and this is all part of the ever widening 'crisis in software'. I would rail on it, but I'm supposed to be in retirement, and I'm not done trying on these optimist's shoes... :)

-- a (a@a.a), January 09, 2000.