Re: Y2K Issues

[Al Christians <achrist@easystreet.com>]

dewarr@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> 
> Twenty years = 1978, and of course we agree that people
> were aware of Y2K then, indeed my post that started this
> thread noted that.
> 
> But Robert Eachus claimed ten years earlier (late 60's),
> and that I find dubious.
> 

I've been doing a little informal research on my bookshelf to see 
what level of awareness of y2k problems was in times past and what 
a reasonably literate software developer would have seen.   Here's 
some of what I've found:

1. A good late 1980's Cobol text has examples with 2-digit year fields.
2. Cobol's CURRENT-DATE returned 2-digit year through Cobol 85.  Even
somebody who knew how bad this was might still use 2-digit years in
their code, because that was the standard way, and the standard way
would be compatible with the anticipated standard fix that has never
arrived.
3. A 1993 book on user interface screen design has 2-digit year fields
in the example screens, and gives results showing how research finds 
longer data fields produce much higher data entry error rates -- no 
mention of y2k problems.  (I know of several very large systems written 
20 or more years ago with file formats and processing algorithms that 
accomodate y2k fine, but that are rendered worthless by y2k because the 
screens and I/O routines are non-compliant)   
4. Yourdon and Constantine's _Structured_Design_, a very influential 
work circa 1978, includes a lengthy example with data dictionary
entries showing 6-digit date fields.  Curiously, Yourdon is now one of
the authors of books telling how to handle the problem.

 
Al