Re: year 2000 -- MIDRANGE-L

On Tue,  9 Sep 1997 18:44:19, -0500, DNNJ23A@prodigy.com (MR ROY H
SCHNAUSS III) wrote:

>The sorry software that I own couldn't even handle dates over 100 
>years when I bought it.  Any patients that were born before 1900 had 
>to deleted from the system. You would think that medical software 
>would have a 4 digit date field when I bought it in 86.  You really 
>have to look out for poorly made packages. I paid $12000 dollars for 
>it and have hated it ever since.

There's really a couple of things going on here. When I started
developing medical apps with dBase 4, I forced century usage on. All
my databases and program logic, etc. use the four-digit year. The
problem occurred when I distributed the applications: "Why do I have
to type all four digits of the year?"

This was back in 1993, but I knew as a developer, the Y2K problem
would just bite me silly if I wasn't proactive. So I've explained to
numerous people about the Y2K problem. Some understood, some didn't. 

(One would think, with all the strictness of records management in
healthcare, that Y2K compliance would have occured sooner, especially
with many hospitals utilizing systems that (could) have patients born
in 18____. Hey, on the bright side, maybe your software will have a
"Y2K" upgrade really soon now!)

Let's take an AS/400 example: Infinium Software (was Software 2000).
Their apps have honored 4-digit dates forever (seems like). But the
data-entry screen allows either 2- or 4-digit years. On any screen
that accepts MMDDYYYY (payroll, for instance), all the users just type
in MMDDYY. It's been a slow process for me to explain to people why
they should be getting into the habit of typing a four digits. 

So: On top of a humungous technical/programming problem, we're faced
(again) with the human resistance to change. After all, probably every
other computer they've used took only 2 digit years. Look in your
checkbook. There's an 19______, waiting for you to just fill in the 2
digits. Credit cards. Bank statements. Legal docments. Applications.
Virtually all preprinted forms use 19______. Just imagine the paper
waste or crossouts on 1 Jan 2000!

2 problems: 
1) Fix the code, soon!
2) TRAIN THE USERS!!! Y2K compliance is only as good as the data
entry. You have absolutely got to force the users to conform to the
data.

I absolutely hate windowing schemes because they don't solve the
problem elegantly. This is ignoring the problem, postponing it "until
we have more time to devote to it". Many of the "magic cures" or
"silver bullets" for software are just windowing schemes. THIS IS NOT
FIXING YOUR CODE! It will bite you again in 100 years. Sure, we won't
be around to worry about it, but why suffer through it again?

Sorry for the rant... ^_^

 - lg -


--
A book: ...turn a page, read, read, read, read...
Television: ...click, watch, watch, watch, watch...
The Web: ...click, wait, wait, wait, wait, read...
lgoodbar@tecinfo.com  ICQ#504581  http://www.tecinfo.com/~lgoodbar/
+---
| This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to "MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com".
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to MAJORDOMO@midrange.com
|    and specify 'unsubscribe MIDRANGE-L' in the body of your message.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com
+---