STL Time Machine Report #4 - 1998-01-20

Testing began in earnest Last Friday, with our first test date: 
07/05/1999.  It went well enough that we were allowed to take the 
Martin Luther King holiday off.

A new problem popped up.  After a test we need to capture a large amount
of data.  Various reports must be printed to show what jobs ran, what
tapes were cataloged, et cetera.  Originally we planned to hand write
much of this data on worksheets.  The volume was simply too great to do
this with two testers.  So we ended up writing some JCL to print out
some syslogs, in addition to extra tape backups of files after
processing.  We are still limited to one HP laserjet 5 for all time
machine printout.

Tuesday, we continued testing with 12/31/1999 and rollover to
01/01/2000.  Today's testing did not go smoothly.  Nothing crashed, but
the operations people erased some of our corrected test data, and
therefore our test setup was incomplete.  So we did not get sufficient
results to prove certain fixes had been tested, even though we completed
almost all the test processing, including daily, weekly, and monthly
batch jobs.  We will be testing rollover to 01/01/2000 at least two more
times this testing cycle, according to the original plan, so perhaps we
can get it right next Tuesday.  In any event, no new problems have been
discovered.  We found and fixed four cosmetic problems during our dry
run testing with the time machine.

Tomorrow continues with an IPL to 02/28/2000 and rollover to
02/29/2000.  I hope to test the COBOL II compiler and runtime library
during this test, even though it is not on the test plan.

From my point of view the best news is that we're training the testing
department to take over this testing, and I will soon be out of it
(unless additional support is required).  This suits me fine, as I have
put in nearly 120 hours in the last two weeks and have worked on nothing
else for the last four months.  I will be delighted to get back to
regular programming.  This project has enough momentum that it will
continue without me, and I will be grateful for the stress reduction.  

Some other notes...

Last Thursday I attended a class on a Windows hosted application for 
tracking software defects and resolutions.  We will be using it for 
all software development, including mainframe, whether or not it is 
Y2K related.  I got a big laugh in the class when I crossed my legs 
and inadvertently kicked the power switch on the PC under the table, 
and shut down my work station.  Never trust a computer you can lift 
with your bare hands.

The company just switched to a different payroll service provider.  We
were told the new deposit slips would be easier to read.  And indeed,
the print is larger and the deductions are more clearly labeled.  But
the most interesting thing I noticed is that the new paychecks/deposit
slips have 4-digit years on every single date field.  I compared against
the old ones, which only had 2-digit years.  I suspect that Y2K problems
may have influenced the company's decision to switch.

And finally, I promised I would alert the media as soon as I received a
credit card with a year 2000 expiration date.  Today, I finally received
it, and it says 01/00.  It's a good thing too, since my ISP has been
hounding me to update my account information because my card was about
to expire.  If I find anyplace that won't accept my new credit card I
will be loaded for bear.

--
Arnold Trembley     
http://home.att.net/~arnold.trembley/
"Y2K?  Because Centuries Happen!"