OK, I'm going completely anonymous here, but listen up because this is the God's truth. I work for a real big government agency. We've been 'ready' since last year. However, I stumbled across a very unusual admission on our internal website. Couldn't believe it really. Our agency admits that the rollover will be the first real-time test of compliance. Wow! They admit it. Can you believe this? The first test, and they hope it works? And THIS is compliance? Holy shit, man. What more do we need to here. Its like this in EVERY friggen agency, utility etc. Nothing has been real-time tested. Nada.

-- whoanelly (fan@sys.com), August 19, 1999

Answers

Must be social security. If you are afraid to verify, send a copy to Jim Lord.

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), August 19, 1999.

(1) It is virtually impossible to test all cases and combinations for a non-trivial system. Therefore, even in a system that is diligently tested, some errors will slip through until the system goes "live." These errors will appear with decreasing frequency for years (!) after the system changes are installed. This implies that there will be problems even with "fixed" systems.

(2) Why do you think that so many programmers are preparing? We know how difficult it is to fully test a major system.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), August 19, 1999.

sorry whoanelly, but in light of the disclosure today by Jim Lord I'd feel that your post is suspect and may be the work of a troll trying to do a Stephen Poole.

Can you provide either a cut and paste of the internal website?

Mike

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-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), August 20, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr near Monterey, California

This is not news to most of those here.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage.neener.autospammers--regrets.greenspun), August 20, 1999.

Yup, no news here, sorry whoanelly. But, hang with us. 875 man-years of programming experience here, the last time I checked.

Tick.. Tock... <:00=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), August 20, 1999.

I hope you're listening to Gary North on Art Bell tonight. They just had a good talk about "end-to-end-testing". <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), August 20, 1999.

1/1/2000 will BY DEFINITION be the first REAL-TIME test of ALL applications everywhere (unless someone has got hold of a real Tardis and is keeping it secret ;-)

All prior testing is done by advancing the clock on what is usually an isolated sub-system (occasionally a complete clone of a complete system) and then feeding it with simulated data pertaining to dates that haven't yet happened in real time.

So, it's hardly much of an admission!

As to whether the testing that has been done is sufficient ... well, time alone will tell on that one.

-- Nigel Arnot (nra@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk), August 20, 1999.