Is April 1st a significant date?

-- April Showers (missapril@aprilflowers.org), April 01, 1999

Answers

I live in NY, where we are now in FY 2000. I haven't seen any problems yet, but i belive the state is probably experencing some severe failures. I'll try to report if and when they show up. I hope that canada is all right, and that Britain will be on April 6th.

-- Crono (Crono@timesend.com), April 01, 1999.

No, I don't think it is a significant point to predict future success (or failure) from based on publicly available information.

Even in Japan, it's my opinion that the potential failure of programs using 1 Apr in fiscal year calc's won't display their symptoms for potentially many days, if not many weeks or months.

It's a fiscal year level problem, which will allow errors to "stay inside" "behind the closed doors" of corporations and governments, and even if they affect data, the data and the symptoms can be (probably will be) kept in the controllers' and accountants' domains.

Errors are defininitely probable, but unless they affect stock prices, government handout's or checks, or money changing hands immediately, the public won't know.

And the media (most likely) won't go looking.

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (Cook.R@csaatl.com), April 01, 1999.

Errors are defininitely probable, but unless they affect stock prices, government handout's or checks, or money changing hands immediately, the public won't know. And the media (most likely) won't go looking.

Of course, the above is, has been, and will be true of software bugs, human error, and process problems of all kinds from all sources throughout the industrialized era.

-- Count Vronsky (vronsky@anna.com), April 01, 1999.

If we expect New York to be able to hide problems (at least for awhile) that start now because of their fiscal year rollover, can we say the same thing when 46 more states start their fiscal year 2000 at the beginning of July? Or will the problems be harder to hide because of the number of states that will be having them?

-- Don (whytocay@hotmail.com), April 01, 1999.

Considering all the publicity over Y2K, I think that both in governments and in businesses, if Y2K failures can be covered up, or attributed to some other problems, they will be. NO ONE likes to look foolish, not in government, in business or other places. Many of these folks in charge have BIG EGOS and don't want to loose face over a "trivial" thing like Y2K.

So...cover up will be standard operating procedure and what we will see over the more long term is a steady break down of government and business...never attributed to Y2K.....always accompanied by the statement, "Things will get better shortly!"

Sincerely, Apple

-- Apple (villarta@itsncet.com), April 01, 1999.

What a load of dung-eating hypocrites you GIs are. We have been lectured for months (by you) about how important April 1 was to be in the breakdown of society. "The code is broken - it can't be fixed"

Here we are, April 1 - nothing has happened. "But wait" say the doom lovers! It has happened, governments are simply "covering up" it's a Conspiracy!!!!!!!!!!!!. "Trust us, the sky is still falling..."

"So, of course I want to see y2k bring down the system, all over the world. I have hoped for this all of my adult life." -- Gary North

-- Y2K Pro (2@641.com), April 01, 1999.

Here's how states whose unemployment insurance systems were still non- compliant in January 1999 handled the problem:

[sorry, but the link to this article has died]

[added bold emphasis mine]

[snip]

13 States, District Face Y2K Problems

Unemployment Checks May be Slowed

By Stephen Barr

Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, December 23, 1998; Page A03

Thirteen states and the District will have to put electronic bandages on their computers next month so they can pay new unemployment insurance claims into the year 2000, Clinton administration officials said yesterday.

The federal-state unemployment program provides one of the first large-scale examples of the problems caused by the "Y2K bug." Computer experts have warned that payments for billions of dollars in Medicaid, food stamps, child welfare and other federal-state benefits could be at risk because surveys have shown that states are moving slowly on the Y2K problem.

Many of the computer systems in the unemployment insurance program, which processes claims, makes payments to the jobless and collects taxes from employers, are more than 30 years old. The systems processed more than $20 billion in state unemployment benefits in fiscal 1998 and provide crucial data on economic trends.

Persons filing claims for jobless benefits are assigned a "benefit year," which means that -- starting Jan. 4, 1999 -- unemployment insurance systems will have to be able to process dates and calculations that extend into 2000. Y2K problems may occur when computers next month try to process a first-time claim with a benefit year that covers both 1999 and 2000, officials said.

Some states that have not solved their Y2K problems will use a simple temporary fix, such as ending all benefit years on Dec. 31, 1999, while other states will use different techniques that essentially trick the computers so they will perform accurate date calculations, officials said.

If the computers are still not ready to operate on Jan. 1, 2000, states then will rely on emergency backup plans, including the writing of benefit checks by hand, officials said.

John A. Koskinen, the president's adviser on Y2K issues, and Deputy Labor Secretary Kathryn Higgins yesterday stressed that the nation's unemployment insurance system would not suffer serious disruptions.

"A year out, we know where our problems are. . . . It's an enormous help to have that information," Higgins said.

Koskinen pointed to the contingency planning for jobless benefits as a clear sign that the government will be able to maintain important services and programs, even if computer systems encounter Y2K problems.

[snip]

Labor Department officials listed Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, the District, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Vermont as lagging on Y2K repairs. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands also are running behind schedule, the officials said.

Delaware, according to the Labor Department, will not have all computer systems converted until the last possible moment: Jan. 1, 2000. But state officials said the most critical systems have been fixed and suggested that even experts can disagree on how to assess Y2K readiness.

The District should have its unemployment system fixed by March 31, the Labor Department said.

Overall, the repair bill could run to $490 million for the unemployment insurance systems, according to preliminary estimates.

[snip]

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 01, 1999.

Some recent comments from this forum about what might happen when New York and Canada enter their fiscal year 2000 on April 1:

"fiscal years reported as yr 2000"

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000add

...and...

"Will something really happen or just another April Fool's Day?"

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000f20

Ed Yourdon's comments about April 1st are at the second link.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), April 01, 1999.

What a load of dung-eating hypocrites you GIs are. We have been lectured for months (by you) about how important April 1 was to be in the breakdown of society. "The code is broken - it can't be fixed"

Here we are, April 1 - nothing has happened. "But wait" say the doom lovers! It has happened, governments are simply "covering up" it's a Conspiracy!!!!!!!!!!!!. "Trust us, the sky is still falling..."

Ok "pro", care to show us these posts about April being doomsday? I asked the same question of Paul Davis yesterday, and he never responded.

So I ask you again show us these posts you talk about where we "lectured" you that April 1999 will be the breakdown of society.

-- curious (ButNotFor@Long.com_), April 01, 1999.

I'd like to see you answer that too.

-- Bob (Bob@Bob.com_), April 01, 1999.

Forget it guys. The only thing Y2K Prophylactic knows is that stupid Gary North link. He must think this is the Gary North site. First class dunce.

-- Wiseguy (got@it.gov), April 01, 1999.

Where's the BEEF, y2k pro?

-- Norm (nwo@hotmail.com), April 01, 1999.

The facetious answer is that if April 1 proves to cause lots of problems, this proves y2k will be very bad. If there aren't any visible problems, April 1 doesn't prove anything one way or the other and y2k will still be very bad.

April 1 has been considered a potential spike date for some while now. Genuine problems can arise because major systems really start to see and work with a year of 00 for the first time in numerous coding situations. An analogous situation occurs in the UK on April 6. And there is another spike date April 9. So within a couple of weeks, we have three opportunities for one of our political parties in this forum to say 'I told you so' to the other, who won't listen.

My reading is, first, that most such problems are internal accounting problems not likely to be publicly visible and second, that not all of these errors even internally cause clear symptoms at the stroke of midnight -- there's the possibility of corrupted data not showing up for a while.

Ed Yourdon wrote in one of his essays that companies could use the incidence of such FY rollover problems as a barometer of their y2k exposure. It's also possible that understanding problems happening at this time might enable remediators to build better test data for later.

I know we all watched very carefully to see if WalMart would have problems when their FY rolled over on Feb 1. Since that time, the only mention of WalMart has been their speed in responding to changing demand for oil lamps and the like. Apparently it didn't cause any visible problems. I don't expect we'll see much real trouble from these early April dates, and I expect we'll make a lot of noise over anything we do see.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), April 01, 1999.

Flint, I hope there's a party this time next year for all of us. Your posts always make sense, it's just that I'm not going to breathe a sigh of relief for about another year. :)

-- Helen (sstaten@fullnet.net), April 01, 1999.

For what it's worth, in his response to Clinton's y2k speech last summer, Ed Yourdon wrote:

"On April 1, 1999 we will all watch anxiously as the governments of Japan and Canada, as well as the state of New York, begin their 1999- 2000 fiscal year; at that moment, the speculation about Y2K will end, and we will have tangible evidence of whether governmental computer systems work or not. "

To me, tangible evidence means we can see it - that it cannot be covered up and kept secret. 'At that moment' doesn't mean in a week or a month. And we're told that speculation will end.

Perhaps Ed Yourdon will now write that speculation will only have ended if big problems really happened?

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), April 01, 1999.

I agree completely with Sir Flint (of the hardnosed) on this one - April 1 doesn't mean anything particular one or the other.

Even if things fail - they will most likely fail in accounting systems and bookkeeping records - and not be visible for weeks, if not months in the future, deep inside fiscal reports and documents not opened to the general public, to very few outside the accounting offices anyway, and probably not affecting outsiders immediately.

If things have gone wrong - the first indication may be the quarterly reports due at the end of the second quarter (June1999) for those companies and governments turning over now to a new fiscal year now. But governments don't submit quarterly statements to the SEC, so .......

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (Cook.R@csaatl.com), April 01, 1999.

Please accept my apology for posting this yet again. We've had several threads on 4/1:

Folks, they call it the Y2K problem for a good reason, not the various dates in 1999 problem. I dare to say that the number of programs that do look-ahead is very small compared to the big picture. How many embedded systems do look-ahead processing? <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), April 01, 1999.