I can't help but think back what the y2k bug had been for all of us. Don't get me wrong, I did not underestimate what potential problems that could have surfaced, should the issues in various places, far and wide, not been fixed. I know, because I'm on the technical side, working in overdrive in an international bank to fix their foreign exchange and backoffice systems.
Back then, the forex system is pretty much fine. Afterall, it's on much newer platforms. The backoffice mainframe is another completely different story. We (the forex folks) have to be there, because those stupid DECS are still around, and those backoffice programmers (yes, they're called programmers, not developers or engineers) still work with screen-scraped green screens on black terminals. And they're the ones who can't shake off the DDMMYY hangover after 30 years.
(PS here: But it is quite safe to say that, those programmers are really the winners in this globalization world. Afterall, they don't even teach COBOL in schools, local or overseas, anymore. So, their jobs are pretty secure, and it's quite safe to say that, they can probably ride it to the sunset. Happy or sad ending? You be the judge. But it's sad to me.)
Perhaps we could say that the efforts to fix the y2k bug by various industries (including the government, financial, manufacturing, telcos, utility, media, and most every day-to-day system that we might come across) had been such a huge success, that we never got to hear horror stories, like B52 bombers didn't flip to fly upside-down when they cross the equators, or some such.
And believe me, I know how horrible it could have gone wrong. Afterall, I started out with COBOL (remember that language that marks CICS?!?), and I'm all too familiar with the DDMMYY. (I was more than ecstatic to switch to c, c++, and then java, after paying my short dues in COBOL.)
After all these times though, I don't subscribe to the notion that everything in the society was going to fall down on its face. Of course, after seven years now, we can quite safely say so. But I have always felt this way. A lot of it is due to media hype. And consulting outfits like IBM and CSC are all too happy to drum up the beat for them, and a huge troop of consultants in tow.
(Another PS here: Most everyone who's not in the know of the technicalities are pretty ignorant to what the y2k bug was. There was even a news story of a peasant woman in rural China who died of pesticide. Cause of death? She drank the pesticide after hearing the y2k bug news report, thinking that she'd be infected. Sad, aye?!)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment