Y2K25

Just realized the other day that this year marks 25 years since a major event in my career.

But why? Nothing happened, right?

EXACTLY! But it's the why that matters.

For the uninitiated...

Y2K is shorthand for "the year 2000 problem" created by early computer programmers using only two digits to store a year rather than four. So, instead of 1999, it's just 99. This was no problem as long as that two digit number got bigger every year (as years do because that's how time works). But when 1999 becomes 2000, that 99 becomes 00 (not bigger), the computer sees that as the year 1900, and that's a problem! What kind and how big of a problem depends on what that computer program does.

Of course, people being people, the issue was sensationalized to mean the end of the banking system and planes literally falling out of the sky. Doomsday soothsayers were having a field day. It's the end of the world!

In my job as a computer programmer, I worked entirely on old programs written in COBOL, decades before anyone ever thought about Y2K. Hundreds of em. Exactly the kind of code susceptible to the Y2K bug. And our business was financial: processing and billing credit card transactions. Without a doubt, our systems would stop working when the year rolled from 99 to 00. No more credit card transactions. Hardly the end of the world, but a serious wrench in the gears.

So what did we do?

WE FIXED IT BEFORE IT HAPPENED. And that's the part everyone forgets.

Y2K wasn't a hoax.

Y2K wasn't a boondoggle.

Y2K wasn't a government conspiracy.

Y2K was a real issue, potentially a massive one, but one that the I.T. world saw coming.

In my own case, we worked on it from mid 1998 all the way up to the end of 1999. Hundreds of programs were updated, tested and in place before the year 2000. The result...

Nothing happened.

Nothing happened because WE FIXED IT BEFORE IT HAPPENED, same as pretty much every other I.T. department in every other business or government in the world. And that's the part that needs to be remembered. Not for kudos or attaboys. But rather to give the hoax & conspiracy wackadoodles one less thing to talk about.

Although it's tough to stop a determined wackadoodle. {sigh}