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Technology Stocks : 2000: Y2K Civilized Discussion -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cheeky Kid who wrote (235)	8/14/1999 7:50:00 PM
From: Ken	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 662

What is the REAL danger here? <Bemer Is Not Worried About 9/9/99 I received this today from Bob Bemer, who invented the escape key, and who has recently escaped. He isn't worried about 9/9/99. * * * * * * * * * * I've seen a number of recent articles that highlight September 09 as a dangerous date. They say it is because programmers used all 9's as infinity or never. They show the graphic of 9/9/99 to make us understand it easier. I admit that this confuses me, and causes me to wonder what I have missed in 50 years of being a computer programmer. If this prediction were true, September 19 and 29 would have to be dangerous dates, too. Surely programmers don't use 4-digit date fields for the first 9 days of the first 9 months of the year, switching to 5-digit date fields for the balance of the days in the first 9 months of the year, and then to either 5- or 6-digit date fields for the last 3 months of the year. Even if they did, I see an insurmountable problem with the last convention. Would 11999 in a 5-digit date field be November 9th of 1999, or January 19th of 1999? It could even be the 119th day of 1999. Of course if the "/" had been embedded in the field there would not be a problem. But everyone tells me the whole Y2K glitch is because they needed to save space, so why would they then embed two slashes instead of using the full 4-digit year form? Each takes up exactly the same memory. I could admit that some programmers might have used 99/99/99 for such a purpose, but in actual practice I have never met a 99th month. I could also admit that the compacted form might be 9/9/99 as it is printed out. But the printed form is a secondary form, not a database form, and would hardly be used for logic. So I suspect that 9/9/99 is the reddest herring ever. But the problem is that the media folk have demonized it, and when not a single problem occurs on September 9th they will chorus "See! 9/9/99 didn't fail! There can't be anything to the Y2K problem". This gimmick is a dangerous stupidity. I wish it could be debunked in time. Or did I waste those 50 years?