homer, I think your post about the computer time bug may not be an OT
if parallels to the big Y2K computer time bug can be made.
<<No notices or previous notification>>
The fact that a fix was completed by the manufacture but unavailable to the
users most likely was on advice of their lawyers rather than the programmer
who fixed the problem and saw no reason why it was not made available to users
so that no interruption in service happened.
Along the lines of deciding which actions a company will take based on the
bottom line to maximize profits. Seems ok until we remember that the car
industry did it this way, comparing people lives to money.
Recently on the news was a report on those Mustang cars people hold as
drivable collector items to recapture the times of the 60's. With a flaw
in the design seperating the gasoline fuel tank and inside car passenger
compartment. It would have cost Ford $X in less profits to make the car
"safer", and $Y in out of court settlements from burn victims after their
death or fire damage. The Y was less than the X, so Ford decided to let
people burn.
As to your airplane navigator helper for location and direction,
the company decided to hold back given out the solution incase some bugs
were present. I'am sure that you would have accepted the fix and took extra
caution incase it did not work, but atleast your already stored information
would have remained. So now you have the fix, after the event,
with the lost of all your past inputted stored information.
I bet there will be a lot of this type of business decisions made for the
big Y2K, as in hold back the fix until after 1/1/2000, especially if the
manufacture can figure a better bottom money line comparied to what may
occur if a fix is given out before 2000, and it does not work, or more
importaintly, causes more problems than no fix would cause.
The laws and lawyers and lawsuits will determine the Y2K experience,
not common sense and do what seems natural for the good.
<<total internal memory reset, lost all of my user waypoints>>
(off topic) Possible that all the current fixes may work for what designed for,
but these new changes may not be compatiable with other software that have
and have not Y2K fixes.
If so, and the weakess link in the chain determines if a path to start
and finish completes, then any break will cause stoppage.
Now if so, then most likely all the ok fixed code may have to wait for
the software not yet fixed to be addressed. Ofcourse at this point there
is not longer "free" time to do it, as 2000 has come.
Talk to programmers about the time and effort needed to fix old software when
documentation is worthless, and many times a conclusion will be reached that
a complete rewrite is a better solution. Time and money needed,
and it might become the "in" industry for 2000 if the transition to 2000
becomes a nightmare. I'am not up to speed on software companies except for
the Microsoft and a very big one with a Chinese man as founder.
The reason I think a major rewrite will happen is because eventho a lot
of fixes will become quickly available to patch the weak or broken links
in the flow of the software activities, it will be realized that the future
will require changes to keep up with new business models and needed
improvments in efficiently, and the fixes stand in the way of progress.
Anyone read this opinion in articles or web sites talking about the Y2K problem ?
I heard that Microsoft is buying itself out of the software business into
other computer areas, and the software side will become maintenence of
existing software they already done. But if the 2000 bug causes a lot of
rewrites of existing old Y2K buggie software, then Microsoft will remain in
the new software creation market.
Doug |
