STL Time Machine Report #47 - Monday 21 June 1999 (1999-06-21) The company issued a press release a couple of weeks ago, announcing full Y2K readiness. I heard through the grapevine that it was read on the local National Propaganda Radio news program, but I haven't seen it picked up anywhere else. THE GREAT GEEK MIGRATION Cory Hamasaki reported in WRP122 about anecdotes of programmers bugging out for the big event. I don't see this, at least not yet. I haven't surveyed the programmers outside my group, but I've only encountered one contract programmer who is expressing a great deal of nervousness. Since he's a not an employee, he's probably exempt from any rollover coverage. He might bug out, but I haven't seen any other evidence of this. How about it? Does anybody else have anecdotes about geeks deserting their benevolent employers? THE FREEZE IS ON This was a very interesting thread over the weekend, one I recommend to you, even though I don't agree with all the comments posted. I don't think we can project anything about the actual consequences of the date change from the presence or absence of a development freeze. We have one, but it hasn't worked out exactly as I expected. The primary goal of our development freeze was to reduce the number of changes made to critical systems that have passed our Y2k testing. That's to prevent introducing new date bugs into code we believe is ready. Secondarily, the freeze has been intended to prevent Non-Y2k changes to systems, so that they will have been running stable for 3-6 months prior to rollover. Our freeze has not resulted in the layoffs of any employee programmers. There's been a slight reduction in the number of contractors, but development of new systems or enhancements is continuing, with implementation dates targeted after March, 2000. THE STRAIGHT POOP ON THE VAN NUYS TEST? The four million gallon sewage spill that occurred during the Van Nuys Y2k test was another big topic in c.s.y2k. It looks bad and certainly smelled worse. Does this mean the actual rollover will result in TSHTF? I'm not completely convinced. I've seen a lot of Y2k testing and the biggest problems I've experienced were in test setup. Was the sewage spill a true Y2k problem, or poor test design and execution? I certainly don't know, and you can make an argument that my experience in business applications has no bearing on what they were trying to do in Van Nuys, California. INTERESTING QUOTES Here's some recent quotes from comp.software.year-2000 I thought were particularly interesting: "As things are evolving, many are realizing that Y2K is not a threat to survival at all (within the limits of the continental USA) but likely is a grave threat to many aspects of our lifestyle. To assume that storing food and water will preserve one's lifestyle is ridiculous in the extreme." - Harlan Smith, (1999-06-16) "Tell me, how do *you* prepare for a recession?" - Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-deja.com, 1999-06-12) If I get brave enough to try another round of predictions, I hope to expand on these topics as we go into the final stretch. July 5th is coming up real soon now. It looks like this is not going to be a very big date, but I will be watching it. It's our first fail date, based on our 1996 assessment. As of 1999-06-07, my countdown now reads: 14 days until 1999-07-05 (first fail date) 61 days until 1999-08-21 (GPS Rollover) 80 days until 1999-09-09 (Another date) 194 days until 2000-01-01 (Rollover) Previous Year 2000 Time Machine Reports are available at: http://home.att.net/~arnold.trembley/tmr.htm STANDARD DISCLAIMER: I am NOT an official corporate spokesperson. My opinions should not be held against my benevolent employer. -- Arnold Trembley http://home.att.net/~arnold.trembley/ "Y2K? Because Centuries Happen!"