...I think that as a nation we have faced Y2K with impeccable resolve. I believe that we have done the best that we could have. The Y2K computer problem is the biggest situation that mankind has ever had to face, at least so far in my life. It is interesting to watch it all unravel. I hope I am wrong about this gut feeling I have that this is going to be a catastrophe. I'd also like to personally thank everyone involved in the remediation efforts. While we are out here on the net entertaining ourselves in this and other forums, you all are doing the most important prep; FIXING THE DAMN PROBLEM! If you think about it, with the money and time that has been invested in this issue by governments, industries, organizations and individuals, you can NEVER say that we did not try! What else could anyone have done?

-- Vern (bacon17@ibm.net), November 15, 1999

Answers

As a nation, we could have told people to prepare at least as much as the military has prepared.

-- (normally@ease.notnow), November 15, 1999.

The Clinton administration has "owned" the Y2K problem since January of 1993, the same year that Peter de Jager's "Doomsday 2000" article was published in Computerworld. That article is generally recognized as bringing the Y2K computer glitch into the "geek" mainstream.

Other than Koskinen's BS beginning last year, the administration seemingly has ignored the problem. I say seemingly because in fact Clinton has issued a lot of Presidential Executive Orders that are very pro-active regarding so-called "cyberterrorism", which could clearly apply to the kinds of problems that Y2K could cause in the way of power outages, telecommunications outages, etc. The bottom line of these EOs is Federal Government control and martial law.

"If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck."

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), November 15, 1999.

What else? Called upon the people for a national effort at preparing and conservation as was done in WWII rather than mistrusting people and their ability to cope.

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), November 15, 1999.

Err... assuming that you are not just trawling (sic), and with all respect, isn't most of your nation doing nothing about Y2K? The resolution isn't even to hope for the best, it's to steadfastly ignore the problem altogether and trust the government and engineers to overcome their anathema for bringing a massive project in on time. I am assuming for the sake of argument that you live somewhere on the planet Earth. Excuse me if I'm wrong about that.

As to your thank you to the remediators: you're welcome. I have (hang on a second...) some fixed Y2K code on my screen right now. No, hold the applause, the thing is, I'm not going to put it into production software until after Y2K, because of a corporate decision to not roll out a patch for our product. I'm not here in this forum for entertainment, I am really, really scared right now.

You ask what else could anyone have done? Hmmm, let me see:

We could all - ALL - have left our smug, petty, protectionist national pride at the door and dealt with Y2K as the global issue that it is.

We could have enacted laws to oblige companies to disclose EVERYTHING about their remediation programs to anyone who asked, rather than just saying "We're done, trust us" to a few government bodies. We could have made specific politicians, or individuals in government funded advisory bodies legally responsible for any failures at Y2K, rather than allowing those people to disclaim the quality of their advice. We could have applied increasing fines to tardy companies, and used the money raised to pay independent auditors to verify the compliance that most companies are now claiming they have achieved at the last possible second.

We could have built up crisis stocks, or we could just have distributed the enormous food surplusses that we (Europe, USA) already store to local centres. We could have been issuing consistent, prudent stockpiling advice (e.g. two weeks) to the public from years ago to make it acceptable to stockpile, rather than pointing the "wacko" finger at preppers.

I'll stop now, but there's more. Nice post. You really got me going. :)

-- Colin MacDonald (roborogerborg@yahoo.com), November 15, 1999.

I think the situation has been handled horribly!

We ( as a Nation ) can't sit down and discuss anything, like rational adults. There is a spin on it all. A year or more ago, we should have had a National Town Hall Meeting to lay out the facts and possibilities, to discuss contingency plans etc.

The real threats were mentioned about a year ago, in an speech that Klinton and Gore gave somewhere in New England (I believe), but of course the National Media never picked it up. 30 second, ridiculous "news" blurbs have been about all we've gotten.

Even Bennett and the other's on the Y2K Committee have had no real effectiveness in laying out the risks to the public at large. It's embarrassing to be "talked to", in this dumbed down way.

But, such is our history.

-- Gregg (g.abbott@starting-point.com), November 15, 1999.

The irony is: if Clinton had had any foresight at all he could have redeemed himself from the inevitable position in history as "worst president". If he wasn'tjust a puppet himself, that is. Think of it - he could have pulled us all together in one great humanitarian cause. 'Twas not to be...he didn't have what it would have taken - integrity.

-- April (Alwzapril@home.com), November 15, 1999.

I think it's been handled terribly. In fact, just where I work, I was busy fixing y2k in my company while everybody was pooh-poohing it all. Pretty much all those PC folks who do no programming, just help desk stuff and they think they know it all. I even told leaders of my company that new projects should be stopped until I got a handle on the y2k situation. All I got was "new projects will go on." Some cooperation. I simply had to work a lot harder to get the job done. It meant doing "double programming." Revising old code on non- compliant systems, while keeping a revised compliant copy while making fixes, just because "new projects will go on." Then after I fixed everything after 4 years, the media started talking about how it was all hype, while I just got through busting my butt fixing it. Hype, what Bull!! Pissed me off big time. It angers me to this day hearing that "hype" word. Maybe hype for them, they're just reporting another story, certainly not for the programmers. We've got to make the fixes.

-- Larry (cobol.programmer@usa.net), November 15, 1999.

Larry,

I admire your hard work. Way to go!

-- Sheila P (Sheilamars@aol.com), November 15, 1999.

Excellent response, Larry. I too spent many programming years (Cobol, Cobol II, CICS, ALC, PL/1) in the MVS mainframe application systems world. The PC jockies unfortunately have insufficient education (if they majored in CS or IT to begin with -- most didn't) to build a base of knowledge from. My first job out of college in 1978 was as a Cobol programmer for United Telephone Co. I learned immediately that all I had was a basis from which to learn about systems development and integration. One of the first post-college training courses was Yourdon's Structured Methodology. (Some people don't know just how knowledgable Ed really is -- 30 plus years).

But, you know how it goes. After years of runaway multimillion dollar projects, you start to get a little cynical regarding the folks who think they understand systems issues.

Carnegie said, there are essentially three types of people: 1 - Those who don't know, and they know that they don't know -- educate them. 2 - Those who know, and they know that they know -- learn from them and 3 - Those who don't know, and they don't know that they don't know -- avoid them as best you can

Hang in there, Larry. And thanks -- you've made a difference!

TA

-- TA (sea_spur@yahoo.com), November 15, 1999.