Quote:
Originally Posted by tlgerdes
Sorry Colin, I think your comments do fit.
Like Andrew, I was involved in the Y2K preparations, and only due to the preparations made by many 100s of thousands of people, we turned a critical event into a non-event, and because we did our work properly, correctly and efficiently, we created a hoax.  |
Hmmm. I'm not a programmer so I don't really know, but...
On the one hand I worked in finance at the mathematical end at the time (lots of computer dependence), and the fear that this would be a problem was very real and didn't seem to me at the time to be totally without foundation. I also got the sense that the people doing the work fixing it were doing so in good faith, and didn't feel they were participating in a scam.
On the other hand, afterwards, the Economist made the following point. Most industrialised nations spent vast sums on the exercise and moved heaven and earth, and nothing went wrong - so far so good. However Italian government and business largely shrugged their shoulders and did nothing, and... nothing went wrong.
I think I'd characterise this as a massive over-reaction rather than a scam. For the avoidance of doubt, I'm counting myself as a guilty party here.