Question for all Computer Professionals

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

After reading so many of your well-written comments over the past few months, I know all of you represent hundreds of years of experience in the Information Technology Industry.

But for the newbies, (and some of us old-timers, as well), would anyone be willing to help compile a list of job descriptions representing what you currently you do or have done (in layman's terms) with regard to Y2k? It might help us better understand your views.

'Seems to me there's a veritable "Baskin Robbins" menu of job titles within I.T., and we have many people posting from every flavor.

To clarify, when I was working full time in television news, people would often come through the newsroom or studio for tours.

None of them understood our brand of jargon, so if someone told members of tour group he was an editor, they'd understandably assume he was a "Lou Grant" type. Nothing could be further than the truth. He would have to explain that--in television--editors edit videotape. They don't decide editorial content issues.

As a baseline for your responses, let's assume that you won't respond unless you've actually worked on a Y2k remediation project.

If you have, tell us what your job title was/is and then explain it.

Does this seem like a good way to craft responses to this post?

Thanks!

:)

(This post was inspired by another thread detailing stories of Y2k remediation folks who are out of work)

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), July 23, 1999

Answers

Actually I need to slightly amend my example above (Job descriptions are indeed difficult!). With respect to deciding what shots to use, sometimes editors do indeed deal with "editorial content" issues. Often, however, the reporter is right beside them in the editing bay "Calling the shots."

:)

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), July 23, 1999.


System Network Administrator

Put infrastructure in place for programmers to create databases in which all assessment data can be captured and then later compared to a TAVA database.

Work is done for a big kinda goverment agency. They had assessment done about March of this year. Had been working on y2k for a while though.



-- STFrancis (STFrancis@heaven.com), July 23, 1999.


Assessment-government agency-March 1999?

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), July 23, 1999.

Unless I'm cutting COBOL, most of the rest of my expertise quickly degenerates into polly-syllabic gibberish. 25 years in the biz, though. Systems engineer, programmer, analyst, etc. Mainly in heavy mfg. These days, my title is "Independent Computer Consultant", and has been for the last 10 years.

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), July 23, 1999.

Maybe I should add (for newbies) the different stages of Y2K remediation.

Going from memory here. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong. I think I may have left out something.

1. Assessment/inventory 2. Remediation 3. Testing 4. Independent verification of test results

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), July 23, 1999.



So, STFrancis and Mike, you worked on assessment?

Dennis, in which of the of the Y2k remediation areas have you worked?

Just trying to make this as clear cut as possible. I know it's tough.

:)

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), July 23, 1999.


Currently balancing 3 different contracts / commitments simultaneously - one of them ending next week.

1) Financial Systems Analyst - I audit system functionality and recommend changes made in the system Infrastructure as well as logic.

2) Y2K Taskforce chairman - I steer a variable committee of up to 9 people in regard to remediation of systems and procedures (manual and automated) and oversee preparation efforts.

3) Financial Systems Architect - I oversee the creation of enterprise systems (the core computer system which a company uses in it's daily business) This has involved Point-of-sale, Insurance Claim processing, Student Loan Payment and Origination processing, Accounting core systems, etc..

All of these systems / positions have Y2K either on the forefront or embedded (I hate that word) within.

Yours in COBOL... Dino!

-- (COBOL_Dinosaur@yahoo.com), July 23, 1999.


O.K., so now we have

Two folks with Y2k assessment experience. (STFrancis and Mike L.)

One with assessment and remediation management experience. (COBOL Dino).

I'm simplifying, but that the purpose of this thread. Have I got it right so far? (Still waiting for Dennis)

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), July 23, 1999.


'Gotta run. I'll check back with y'all later.

:)

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), July 23, 1999.


Staff engineer, BSCS honors, NT/Win9X Unix system programmer, blah blah blah.

In the Reagan days I worked on the F/A 18 D version, and at the Trident Base at Bangor on Torpedo acoustics software for the MK48, MK50, etc. Lately I do network software, IBM terminal emulation, network servers, IBM Host connectivity, etc.. We need another cold war, perhaps with China so I can get back to more interesting work :-)

The testing my company has done has yeilded no significant Y2K bugs in the products we develop. I should say that I don't work with COBOL or applications programs. This is where I think that the most problems with Y2K will be. (financial systems, GL, and the like). As a vendor, we test the hell out of everything we ship because if it fails, we lose our reputation, get sued and watch our huge customer base go to our competitors.

One of our mainframes has been running in the Year 2000 for months with no issues, but I don't want to get lulled into thinking this is no big deal because I'm not exposed to the applications side of things.

Bryce (better get back to work..)

-- Bryce (bryce@seanet.com), July 23, 1999.



Programmer or Programmer/Analyst

Mainly COBOL in a VAX/VMS environment for an educational institution. Not huge, maybe 200,000 lines of code locally and another 500,000 "common" to several institutions. We're still not finished, but our main systems are up & running with several lingering problems and others popping up weekly. Our senior person is starting to get a little frazzled - it's like one step up and two steps back. Five people on staff for programming, about 30 in IT as a whole.

I've found that the entire Y2K "fix" process doesn't exactly flow sequentially like most models show. In reality, all five steps are constantly evolving, although the emphasis (percentage time spent) moves along the sequential path.

-- Jim (x@x.x), July 23, 1999.


I've been working 30 years in IT, 19 years as a computer consultant. Completed 2 Y2K contracts. Both contracts included both Cobol and Assembler code. One was for a national car insurance company - the job itself stretched from analysis to remediation to testing and then integration testing. The second was for a state government agency - income tax. This one also included assessment, remediation and testing, then documentation of system testing for submssion to the state.

-- Jean (jmacmanu@bellsouth.net), July 23, 1999.

FM:

Areas I've been involved in: 1, 2 and 3.

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), July 23, 1999.


UNIX system administration. (English Translation: Cheif Cook and Bottle Washer)

Normally means everything from minor operations tasks (creating accounts, changing passwords) to system wide tasks (setting up system variables, configuring OS packages like high availability, mainframe connectivity, DNS, NIS, [M-O-U-S-E!!]), system security, logical volume management, blah blah blah. You get the picture.

I currently help depatments bring their applications in to the Y2K lab for testing. This in a large multi-national. I don't actually get to define the test criteria. This was ceated by the client. It is entirly possible that the tests here can be invalid because of a lack of knowledge about the issues involved. This has been bought up politly to management. Since it's not the same management that signs off on the test procedure, they will let the cards fall where they will. However, the applications are being loaded on systems, and the dates are being rolled forward. The time machine is running full tilt. So I have a reasonably good feeling over all about what we test.

Besides, there's nothing that can be considred dangerous here.

Ooops! Gotta go! The control panel shows a fire in the LPG tank farm. Sure hope the traffic from the giant shopping mall next store doesn't delay the fire trucks. =8-O

Watch six and keep your...

-- eyes_open (best@wishes.net), July 23, 1999.


O.K., so, correct me if I'm wrong, but so far we have

5 professionals who are or have been involved with Y2K assessments,

4 who have been involved in remediation and

2 who have been involved in testing.

(Eyes open, I don't know HOW to classify you!)

Am I right so far? What about all of you other regular posters. This has been a pretty quiet thread so far.

:)

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), July 23, 1999.



With this rarefied group I probably don't hang, but here goes:

1 - Y2000 remediation - IBM PC, DEC 11/93 zeta, a whole line of PDP's,.... simple stuff; installing patches, replacing BIOS chips, upgrading EPROMS...

2 - loose nut behind the keyboard...

gettin' a drink...

The Dog

-- Dog (Desert Dog@-sand.com), July 23, 1999.


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