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Subject:
From:
"C. Daniel Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
C. Daniel Cooper
Date:
Mon, 8 Mar 1999 13:02:02 -0800
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John Apa wrote,

> Y2k is only a problem because it was
> "discovered", for lack of a better word, late in the game. We've learned
> that we need to look ahead and write code that won't fail at a
> predetermined date/time.

John betrays his age -- he must be a younger guy :-)

Being guilty of writing Y2K-noncompliant code 30 years ago myself (for
different employers), I can vouch that the problem was not "unknown" and
did not need "discovery" later on: we all knew what we were doing,
namely, cutting corners to get those programs to run in the teensy
memories of the day. We knew the code wouldn't work on 01jan2000; what
we *didn't* know was that our software would still be in use then!

*All* date-based code will eventually "fail at a predetermined date/time"
-- it's just a question of how far out the failure date is; back then, we
thought 3 decades was quite long enough. Should we be writing code that's
Y10K compliant now? :-)

--

C. Daniel Cooper =========v=======================v
Engineer at Software      | All opinions are mine |
206-655-3519              | and may not represent |
[log in to unmask] | those of my employer. |
==========================^=======================^

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