21 Oct
1998
21 Oct
'98
7:24 a.m.
At 12:14 PM 10/21/98 -0700, Sam Ismail wrote:
So, believe it or not my naive young man, people are dumb enough to lose
the source code.
Who you calling "young man"? :-) I'm 35 and learned BASIC on an ASR-33
when I was twelve, and have been supporting myself on my programmer
earnings since the summer I turned 18.
I certainly know the source code gets lost. I'm appalled at how much
code gets written, and then is lost, which might explain the tubs of
floppies and 8mm tapes that I use for decoration in my office.
What I don't believe are these claims that the heart of the Y2K
problem are thousands of businesses running apps as old as I am,
that haven't had to change, or that can't be changed. How many
serious businesses are still running the same unchanged sourceless
app since 1978, much less 1968 or 1958?
- John