Re: Y2K Comments

[Scott McClare <smcclare -at- DY4 -dot- COM>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tracy Boyington [SMTP:tracy_boyington -at- OKVOTECH -dot- ORG]
> Sent: Friday, January 08, 1999 3:13 PM
> To:   TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
> Subject:      Re: Y2K Comments
>
>> First, the so called Y2K "Bug" is not a bug. I really hate
>>this description of the issue.  It is not a bug, it is an inability
>>of many computers to display dates the way we humans wish
>>them to be displayed. You can't say a system has a bug if it
>>is simply doing what it was designed to do.

>Obviously a system can only do what it was designed to do.
>Whether what it was designed to do is what the designer
>actually *intended* to design it to do is another story. So,
>since software can only do what we tell it to do, I always
>thought a bug was when something hadn't been programmed
>properly, causing the software to do something to do
>something unwanted, even though it was actually following instructions.

I would dispute your distinction between "design" and "intent"; I think they
are effectively synonymous, although I'll concede that design connotes a
more detailed plan of attack (e.g. planning, flowcharting, pseudocoding,
etc.) than a mere intention ("Hmmm.  The world needs Foobar for Windows").

Apart from that, you're basically right.  A bug is an undesirable or
unexpected property in a system that makes it malfunction or behave
incorrectly.

>In that case, wouldn't faulty "instructions," such as "these
>two numbers for the year always have a '19' in front of them"
>be considered a bug? And if I'm wrong, what *is* the definition
>of a bug?

The instructions aren't faulty; it was a corner cut to save memory when
every bit (no pun intended) was precious.  Those programmers simply never
foresaw that their hack would continue this far into the future, where
memory is abundant and cheap and those two extra bytes are insignificant.

Take care,

Scott

--
Scott McClare - Technical Writer
DY 4 Systems Inc., Kanata, Ontario, Canada
(613) 599-9199 x502 smcclare -at- dy4 -dot- com
Opinions are my own

 From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=