I'm a journalist, not a programmer, so I don't feel stupid asking this question. I read somewhere that the occasionaly glitches we heard about as 1999 debuted were somewhat insidious. I suspect there were a lot more problems than we know, but my question is whether the bugs that bit this week are, even now, busily and irretrievably corrupting code that we'll find out about later.

-- Vic Parker (rdrunner@internetwork.net), January 06, 1999

Answers

See JoAnne effect postings below for several examples of the "JoAnne" effect.

(I don't know the source of JoAnne, but it deals with Y2K style problems occuring in 1999.)

-- bubba (bubba@bubba.net), January 06, 1999.

It's my understanding that the JoAnne effect refers to problems now caused by programs that look ahead a year. I'm wondering about software problems that began with the new year, but won't mainfest themselves until later this year or early 2000.

-- Vic Parker (rdrunner@internetwork.net), January 06, 1999.

I called medicare yesterday, trying to get some things straightened out for my father, who is aged and broke his hip. I was told, "our computers are down, theres nothing we can do".

-- ed (edrider007@aol.com), January 06, 1999.

Bubba,

The "Jo Anne Effect" is named after Jo Anne Slaven, who asked a simple question in the comp.sys.year-2000 newsgroup about a year ago and caused just a whole mess o' folks to realize that some systems would have problems much, much sooner than 01/01/2000. Jo Anne drops into this forum ever so often, so maybe she'll provide us with a succinct explanation of the Effect.

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), January 06, 1999.

Vic,

I'm a programmer, not a journalist, so I won't feel embarrassed answering. :-)

>I read somewhere that the occasionaly glitches we heard about as 1999 debuted were somewhat insidious.

Well, I think they'd be no more insidious than other Y2k problems.

>I suspect there were a lot more problems than we know,

Agreed.

>but my question is whether the bugs that bit this week are, even now, busily and irretrievably corrupting code that we'll find out about later.

This is a possible consequence, but not necessarily a predominant one.

Technical point: Generally, there is program "code" (instructions) and program data. The data is more susceptible to being corrupted than the code.

>I'm wondering about software problems that began with the new year, but won't mainfest themselves until later this year or early 2000.

Probably some calendar-related software problems now occurring will not be detected for weeks, months, or years in the future. But that's also been true of non-Y2k computer problems.

Let me say here that while the Y2k computer problems are characterized by being calendar-related problems that are triggered by year number 2000 (or 00) or nearby years such as 1999 (99), their effects could span the entire spectrum of computer error consequences. That is, their narrow definition does not necessarily restrict their consequences to those which are evidently calendar-related. Why? Because in the sequence of instructions in a computer program, an instruction or group of instructions with a Y2k-type error could be followed by any type of instruction and thus could have any type of consequence that any other computer error type could have.

-- No Spam Please (anon@ymous.com), January 06, 1999.

Thanks, NPS, I appreciate you taking the time to explain it to me. That's one of the reasons I like this forum... most of the people on it are helpful and courteous.

-- Vic Parker (rdrunner@internetwork.net), January 07, 1999.

The state of Nevada DMV can not process new vehicle registrations as the go out into the year 2000. They say they are working on it.

-- Jim (waterbaby@yahoo.com), January 07, 1999.

Vic, you're welcome. (But my initials are NSP :-)

-- No Spam Please (anon@ymous.com), January 07, 1999.