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Technology Stocks : Discuss Year 2000 Issues -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Mansfield who wrote (930)	1/20/1998 11:43:00 AM
From: Bill Ounce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9818

Ed Yourdon comp.software.year-2000 post [Here's Ed's thoughts on a popular belief "the powerful will make sure of that".] Bryan, You've already received some other interesting responses to your post, but I'd like to focus on just one snip of your message: "the powerful will make sure of that". I'm not sure how literally you meant this, but as you probably know, this was one of the major themes of "Atlas Shrugged". In that case, the hero (John Galt) declared, quite consciously and deliberately, "I will stop the engine of the world." In our case, none of the programmers planned it or wanted it to happen -- but the fact still remains that only the geeks can fix the systems. The "powerful" don't know how to program; even if they did, there aren't enough of them... What concerns me about the activities currently going on within the banking system, various branches of government, and other parts of the private sector, is that managers and many others are still under the illusion that the "powerful" can prevent the y2k crash by EDICT. Senior executives can command their programmers to work 24 hours a day, but they don't have the power to overcome Brooks' Law. One of the latest examples, which floated through various Internet newsgroups, was Union Pacific's wonderful statement that "we will DEMAND that our 16,000 suppliers by Y2K compliant!" Managers can command until they're blue in the face, but they can't scare all those little Y2K bugs buried in the code, and they can't control the behavior of 16,000 more-or-less independent suppliers, some of whom may go bankrupt whether Union Pacific likes it or not. If a bank fails because of a Y2K bug, the "powerful" can command that the bank be reopened, and they can stuff it full of freshly-printed cash right up to the ceiling -- but they can't command the computers to begin running again. They can command martial law to be imposed, they can command rationing to be imposed, they can command the allocation of people to work on various parts of whatever they feel to be most urgent ... but meanwhile, the broken computers computers are going to sit there, impervious to the demands of even the most powerful of politicians. Bring on the Y2K Czars, bring on the Genghis Khan of Y2K if you want... my guess is that, sooner or later, the programmers of the world will begin chanting, "Who is John Galt?" ---------------------Reply Separator---------------------------- Bryan Cowan wrote: > > It seems to me that opinions on the internet about y2k have divided into > two extremes: the Pollyannas, who insist it's all been overblown and > that nothing significant will happen, and the Chicken Littles, who are > preparing for the collapse of civilization by fortifying farms in remote > areas. It occured to me that as with most extremes, the truth is > somewhere in the middle. Which means that y2k will be painful and > inconvienient, and disastrous for some, but that human civilization will > weather the storm just fine. I really doubt that the people who hold the > real power in the world are dumb enough to fiddle while Rome burns. > Critical systems will come through just fine-the powerful will make sure > of that. The financial ramifications will be similar to the S&L > scandal-a lot of small banks going under, but the big boys will survive. > The always volatile stock market might crash, but it's way overvalued > anyway. A lot of businesses might find out that their cash registers, > ATM machines, and older PCs don't work, but most of them will probably > handle it. A lot of people underestimate human ingenuity-people will use > manual typewriters and even pen and paper to do business if it comes to > that. Consumers will use cash instead of plastic, and the crisis may > even wean the American consumer off his debt fix. People may put a lot > less faith in computers and more in humans. Bottom line: keep paper > records, your money in a major bank, some cash on hand. -- -------------------------------------------------------------------- Edward Yourdon, 1008-A Paseo Del Pueblo Sur, # 261 Taos, NM 87571 <====> phone/fax: 888-814-7605 mail: ed@yourdon.com Web: yourdon.com --------------------------------------------------------------------