Jim--Perhaps your correct. Who's to say how easy it all will be to fix as the article below implies if companies are still reluctant to do IV & V now:
(I think I misspelled believe because I ignored the SI spell checker. Interesting parallel to the article below, no?)
March 22, 1999
Y2K cure 'worse than disease'
By TOM PULLAR-STRECKER
ATTEMPTS to fix the Y2K computer problem often make the problem worse, according to the managing director of software firm Cincom New Zealand.
The Wellington-based subsidiary of the United States-based company is offering to check up to 100,000 lines of Cobol code for Y2K errors free of charge.
Cincom New Zealand managing director Mike Ross says experience overseas has shown the check is likely to find large numbers of critical errors - especially in code that organisations have tried to fix.
He says several hundred mainframe and minicomputer users around the world have taken up Cincom's global offer, and none has provided code which is Y2K compliant.
"We have been saying, 'send us the code you have already signed off as Y2K ready - the code you are most confident about'. The best contained six critical errors, and the worst 200."
Mr Ross says Cincom tends to find more Y2K errors in code that has supposedly been through the process of Y2K remediation than in code that has been left alone.
"That's because there are thousands of programmers with varying skill levels around, not necessarily Y2K expert fixers, who have been going in there and 'having a go' at fixing problems."
Cincom is using Beyond 1999/Validate, a program developed by Californian company CCD Online Systems, to check code using pattern matching and propagation algorithms.
CCD Online says it has found errors in "virtually every case of previously renovated code, regardless of whether the client has used a manual approach, a software tool, or both."
Beyond 1999/Validate customers include the United States Social Security Administration and the United States Customs Service. Customs selected the product in November to check 22 million lines of Cobol.
Under the promotion offered by Cincom New Zealand, users can e-mail up 100,000 lines of Cobol code - with source code and copy books - to Cincom. It will check it using Beyond 1999/Validate, without any obligation for the user to purchase the product.
"It's a suck-it and see free test."
Those who take advantage of the offer and discover errors can buy the tool to validate more software at a cost of 16 cents per line of Cobol checked, plus gst.
Mr Ross says one factor which might make users think twice is that some are reluctant to release code to a third party for validation.
He says Cincom is willing to enter into any confidentiality agreements customers demand and, if necessary, is prepared to carry out the free trial validation at the customer's premises.
"We hope the offer is going to catch people's imagination. Most overseas organisations which have taken advantage of the offer have gone on to buy the product."
Mr Ross estimates there are 11 mainframe users and 30 minicomputers users in New Zealand with sufficient amounts of Cobol code to justify the exercise.
© Copyright, Wellington Newspapers Limited 1999, All rights reserved.
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