Re: Discussion: rmgroup comp.software.year-2000

From: Richard Heathfield (dontmail_at_address.co.uk.invalid)
Date: 02/28/04 

Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 05:53:16 +0000 (UTC)

[news.groups elided, since this subdiscussion is of no relevance to it]

canuckistani wrote:

<snip>

> True, cans
> of beans did not explode upon roll-over

Cans of beans? I wouldn't know. But the reason that we didn't have
significant societal damage from Y2K bugs in software was not that no
problem existed, but that a great number of programmers worked very hard
for a long time, putting a lot of effort into fixing a colossal number of
small problems whose cumulative effect would, of course, have been
incalculable in the literal sense of the word.

Nobody /can/ know what would have happened if we hadn't solved the problem.
Maybe not much. But, just maybe, society would have collapsed around us in
a wobbly heap. Should we have taken the chance? 

-- 
Richard Heathfield : binary@eton.powernet.co.uk
"Usenet is a strange place." - Dennis M Ritchie, 29 July 1999.
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