Ed Yourdon is editor of AMERICAN PROGRAMMER and one of
the world's leading authorities on software development, author of 25
books on programming, developer of software methodologies used by
thousands of companies around the world. Mr. Yourdon made these
comments in defense when a skeptic claimed his latest book, TIME
BOMB 2000, was all hype:
"...maybe the international banking system will survive, but when
Alan Greenspan says Y2K could be a serious problem (as he did
today, in his testimony to the Senate) you'd better pay attention.
From my perspective, this is not a theoretical, academic issue: this
affects my retirement savings and it's not something I feel like
risking. Bottom line: the banking system, as we currently know it,
is in serious danger of collapsing."
"I can't claim that my crystal ball is perfect, but I will tell you
that my own personal Y2K plans include a very simple
assumption: the government of the U.S., as we currently know it,
will fall on 1/1/2000. Period.
"If Y2K does turn out to be as bad as I think it will be, nobody is
going to care about the opinions of software professionals on
1/1/2000 (other than possibly lynching them for having created the
problem in the first place!); instead, everyone is going to be
concentrating on how to get food, shelter, clothing, and the basic
necessities of life. Y2K threatens all of this, except in the
backwards economies that have never depended on automation or
socio-economic interactions with other automated societies. Rural
China will probably be okay; but in my humble opinion, New
York, Chicago, Atlanta and a dozen other cities are going to
resemble Beirut in January 2000. That's why I've moved out of
NYC to rural New Mexico a couple months ago."
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