Y10K NOW!

LampreySoft
An open letter to the world.
© 1999 LampreySoft Technologies

y10k.jpg (12410 bytes)

Dangerous Legacy

Y10K, the year 10,000 AD, is slowly approaching. Y2K is almost upon us. Soon, the repercussions of lack of Y2K compliance will be known. And currently, we have people who are working on Y2K compliance issues. Other "rollover" problems will occur as many systems that have a century-based year system but roll over sometime after 2000.

There is an implicit danger, as well as an unprecedented opportunity.

Who cares what happens about 8,000 years from now?

Admittedly, Y10K compliance isn't something you have to worry about. Your children's children could still put it off with no repercussions to them. They won't necessarily have to deal with it. However your children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children will.
And don't they deserve our consideration? The pitfalls of short-term thinking have been felt in countless environmental, political, and business concerns throughout history. The Y2K issue is a prime example of this in that, with a little forward thinking, the whole problem of Y2K compliance could have been neatly avoided.

What's the rush? We've got plenty of time!

Think of the Y2K issue. In some cases, the use of a two digit date was something programmers chose out of short-sightedness, and more frequently dictated to them as a money saving consideration. Storage space and memory were both amazingly expensive in the 1960's and 70's. Now the opposite is true. Storage and memory are becoming less and less expensive at an accelerating rate.

The key point here is the time issue. Y2K is as big of an issue as it is, yet this whole problem is only as old as the systems and software that are currently in use, which is, in most cases, 40 years old, and is more frequently much less. 40 years of legacy applications and hardware. 40 years of imbedded applications. 40 years of data.

The Y10K problem will come into play in a time where there are 8,000 years of legacy applications and hardware! 8,000 years of imbedded applications! 8,000 years of data!

We have an opportunity, right now. We have a new industry devoted to Y2K compliance issues. We have technical staff and industry leaders who have experience with date compliance concerns. After the year 2000, they will still be working in a game of Millenium Catch Up to get systems into compliance. Then, when the other post-2000 rollover issues come into play, they'll be working to resolve them, too. Eventually, designing hardware or software that isn't four-digit compliant will be anathema to the entire industry. If we haven't addressed the Y10K compliance issue by the time this becomes the case, we will have to start from scratch rather than relying upon the direct experience of those who have worked on contemporary compliance issues.

So what do we do?

When designing concerns require us to deal with date data, we write software and hardware specifications in such a way that date data is acceptable regardless of length, as an ordinary integer on systems that can handle high integers, or at the very least, hard-code date fields to allow for at least 5 digits, preferably more. Don't make assumptions that your code or design won't be in use by the year 10,000 and beyond - those assumptions are why we are tackling the current Y2K compliance issue.

Or, our posterity can wait until the end of the year 9999 and watch it all go to hell.

All LampreySoft products are Y10K compliant, and LampreySoft is the leading firm in Y10K solutions and planning. Contact us now, because you might be out of luck if your organization waits another 8,000 years.