' costs, deathmarch, WRP status, was: It's the econo more options
Author: cory hamasaki
Email: kiyoinc@ibm.XOUT.net
Date: 1999/03/15
Forums: comp.software.year-2000
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On Mon, 15 Mar 1999 20:24:43, "Chris Odom" <my_email_is_chris@enteract.com> wrote:
> I've read that it will cost 3.6 trillion dollars to repair the bugs. Of
> course that is just an estimate, but since the estimates keep going up, I
> will assume it is a good enough one for this example.
Whoa, whoa, WHOA! Three point six t-t-t-trillion dollars?
I say, three point six trillion. Why, that's real money.
You people who are still on the fence about this; who fell for the
anti-hype, "It's being fixed; I ain't seen no date problem take down no
corn-pu-tar; that nice ko-skin-em fellar or that nice English lady,
Gwennie, I hear tell they solved the problem". Listen up.
1. The original estimates were 600 b-b-billion dollars. Gartner pulled
those out of their heinnies and, SURPRISE, they were wrong. If the cost
is even half of the 3.6T, then someone has grossly underestimated the
problem. Maybe someone clueless like GM, ATT, BankAmerica, etc.
This is the clue. They are clueless. No one knows the full scope of
this problem.
2. The work isn't being done. I monitor a couple firms through the
geekvine and the geekvine says that companies are floundering. Like
aphids on a young shoot, geek wannabes are sucking the juice out of
companies.
Geeks tell me that this is happening.
3. There are companies that are just starting their "Deathmarch" (tm) Ed
Yourdon) in Feb/March 1999. The geekvine says that two companies in
Arlington have officially declared the start of their Deathmarches.
I've been consoling geeks there. One geek refuses to work the 15 hours
(five 11 hour days or 8 hours/Sat, 7 hours/Sun, your choice) mandatory
overtime and is being downrated.
I told them, say very loudly that you will be working 4 days/week from
home, that's Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Be sure to tell
everyone how hard you're working at home and especially put the hours
down on your time card.
Since the geeks are doing mind work and not factory piece work, if you're
dozing in your garden on Saturday, sipping iced tea; why, that's the same
as a pointy-haired-manager waving his hands at a meeting.
At this point, it's more important to give lip service to working than to
actually do anything. Compared to people who do negative work, people
like Ko-skin-em, Jane Gravy-Train, etc., a geek who paces himself, gets
lots of rest and tackles the code with a fresh mind, will do 11 hours of
work in 3-4 hours, or something like that.
But make note of this. Who's worried in a major way:
me (but I'm clueless. Just because I have 30 years in industry doing
software engineering, an M.S. in CS, and I saw mainframes fall over
during the 1979 to 1980 date change.)
SHMUEL - I've known his 'rep for decades and people around this town
repect his opinion. He won't tell me how he's preparing because
revealing that may increase his risk.
hanning (anonymous, please) - Wrote major subsystems in assember (SHMUEL
and I worked with him on a project with no name.) He saw Maxwell Online
fail on the 1989 to 1990 date change and within two years Robert Maxwell,
ex-billionare and renegade financier was sleeping with the sharks.
SHMUEL's pal who wrote an MVS software monitor; he declared the problem
to be unsolvable 2 years ago.
Ed Yourdon - (Dr. Yourdon, to you Howie). Serious rep, seriously
worried.
Ed Yardeni - (Fast Eddie "Yes, I used to program in S/370 assembly
language, it was fun" Yardeni, PhD in Economics) Gives the "...you don't
want to know" scenario a 5% probablity.
Steve C/C++ Heller - currently duking it out with the pontificators in
the press.
The guy who ran the Unix to 68000 port for Motorola - he raged at me two
years ago that Y2K could not be solved. Hey guy, calm down, I was only
asking.
Arrayed against these (and lots of others) are a misbegotten pack of
handwavers, op-ed writers, camp followers, lightweights, and big-brains.
It intriges me that people who don't know operating systems internals,
language theory, software engineering, programming, discrete math,
systems design, compiler theory, are able to fool themselves into
thinking that they can make an assessment on a technological problem.
That, as tcmay pointed out, they can hear an obvious "it's OK" spin in
the news and take that to mean that all will be well.
It's not going to be OK. This doesn't mean that we'll be fighting in the
streets or that planes will crash or we'll have a few years of hyper
inflation while the stock market tanks. It means that something very
strange will happen. That lots of really odd events will transprire.
I don't know how it will play out but I have consolidated several
possibilities for the next WRP. WRP114 will be mailed to all
subscribers and they will have it in hand for a few days before I release
it to the web.
cory hamasaki 291 Days, 6,991 Hours, about 9 and a half months.
kiyoinc.com
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