In today's Sacramento Bee, there's an article written by Dale Kasler, "Y2K a bore in Silicon Valley, Forward-looking techies see it as yesterday's bug." In summary, the article says that "many feel that the Year 2000 computer bug is a crashing bore, just another in an endless series of eminently fixable computer glitches--and a pretty dull one at that. Yes, it's a significant problem they say grudingly, but compared with the latest digital gizmo or some hot new Internet company lighting up the valley, Y2K is yesterday's news." You can access the article by going to your search engine and typing in www.sacramentobee.com. It's on page 1 of Sunday's paper. Would like to you know you all think of the article.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), February 07, 1999

Answers

My fingers were typing to fast, the last sentence is: Would like to know what you all think of the article.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), February 07, 1999.

Without reading the article, I can say that "the best & the brightest" (except the Saints) don't want to work on Y2K. Y2K is not a career-builder.

Implicit in your question is that the bug has been fixed ("Yesterday's bug"). I have my doubts on that...

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@Anonymous.com), February 07, 1999.

One thing it did say towards the end of the article, that many "techies," are storing up food, water and supplies. Many are afraid to speak out. So I guess there's fear down in the valley, no one wants to talk about it in fear of being called a kook.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), February 07, 1999.

Techies are accustomed to fixing flaws. Thus their confidence. Are they ignoring the essential infrastructure that sustains them and their fixing ability? Other views on this issue will be appreciated. Thanks for the post.

-- Watchful (seethesea@msn.com), February 07, 1999.

One of the very few good things about y2k is that a lot of smug, arrogant, complacent people are gonna get kicked hard in their butts when the runaway y2k train hits them. A lot of Tops are gonna be Bottoms after January, 2000.

-- cody varian (cody@y2ksurvive.com), February 07, 1999.

I've always seen the situation as the developers don't want to be bothered by what they've produced already. They only want to see and handle the next new project.

Y2K is being fixed by repairing older systms or by replacing older systems with current production systems. Big yawn for the folks who are dreaming of Pentium fours and fives and who would never be caught with their hands working on something as old as a 486.

But the real world isn't everyone replacing their computer every twelve months, if it was we'd have no Y2K problem. Instead, if these Silicon Valley types had a grounding in the user world and not development land, they'd see machines twenty years old and older, still chugging along and making a profit for their owners.

I fear these folks will get a rude awakening when the lights go out and there is no new generation Pentium for five or more years. I hope they're still around to see that day.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), February 07, 1999.

Have worked in a few startups. The propellerheads are by and large brilliant, creative, and extraordinarily hard-working. The vast majority also couldn't meet a deadline even it was "double and add 20" (take original estimate, double it, then add 20% contingency).

Silicon Valley is a testament to genius, ingenuity, and the power of the 16-hour workday. It also has a culture which tends to treat schedules as works of fiction. Hard deadlines like Y2K have rarely if ever been faced, and scare the crap out of those who finally do face them.

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), February 07, 1999.

Y2K is hideously boring (at least to me). So, it's no surprise it's boring to the Valley guys/gals. They're right: Y2K is truly, truly a bore.

But that has nothing to do with anything, except explaining in part why schedules have slipped.

It's eminently boring to CEOs as well.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), February 07, 1999.

I just spent 5 years working in Silicon Valley.

"Forward-looking techies" - that's an oxymoron if ever I heard one. These techies couldn't look further forward than their next donut break. The attitude to y2k is mind-boggling - the vast majority do not have a clue. They have no grasp of the big picture, economics, the supply chain, disinformation, the usual crapola we talk about all the time on this forum.

I have friends on the y2k project at VISA who epitomise the above - all quite sad. As Cody says these smaug arrogant highly paid lemmings are going to face a hard dose of reality in their SUV's very very soon. They all have no loyalty to anything other than the greenback, and will not even have whit to get out of dodge if they were smacked upside the head with a two by four.

Darwinism in action.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), February 07, 1999.

About a week ago I posted a thread along the very lines of Andy's response. My relative has done very well in software development in California, yet he's cloistered in his own little world and his tunnel vision will not let him even analyze the interdisciplinary y2k topic.

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), February 07, 1999.

Cody, all of that talk about tops and bottoms has me feeling very randy. Are you a player or a one man's man?

Oh no, did I open the closet door? Sorry dear.

-- Swishy (bottoms@up.org), February 08, 1999.