Friday with Means - July 8th, 2011 - IDs Please

[Namiru]

Absolutely, although I would say it requires a bit more dedicated effort than an extra few hours every week. And not every problem is so easy to spot if you do not know what kind of trouble you might be looking for or have a good and systematic approach to it.
But in the end you also still need to convince the people with the money that it is the right thing to do.



A number of companies spent a lot of effort on the Y2K problem years before the end of the previous millenium. This was primarily analysis to figure out what software and systems they had which could be affected by this and the likelyhood for a problem to occur, plus what the impact would be if there was a problem.

Thus a number of systems in such a risk/impact analysis were not considered a justified cost to fix all of them ahead of time, just as a complete analysis of every system was not considered cost justified either.

So while there certainly may have been cases where the problem was simply ignored there were also a number of cases where not doing anything was a conscious decision and may still have been the cheaper overall option even if they had to get people to fix things when the millenium changed.

For the most part Y2K went by without any major disruptions.


But you need to identify the issues and do the risk/impact analysis before you get to the point that you can say that to the business side. And that effort in itself is something you need to convince the business side is the right thing to do.

Whoch is my point, actually. When AO switched from a short term to a long term MMO, no assessments were done. Noting, just "patch and go".

And yes, Y3K went by largely without a hitch and some companies did risk assessments. A lot did not. I know several freelance coders that made a bundle in 1999 patching databases, because these corporations (not all of them small) did the initial assessments, then 'put off' dealing with the issues until right before, because they failed to prioritize it.

[Technogen]

Hated Y3K! Damn year of the cyborg-puppy attack.

[Tazalanche]

**snip**
And yes, Y3K went by largely without a hitch and some companies did risk assessments.
**snip**

Can I borrow your time machine please? I need to win the lottery so I can pay off some bills.

I'll give you 50% of the winnings (after taxes).

[Namiru]

Damn typos.

And sorry, no. My TARDIS is in the shop for work on it's Chameleon Circuit. :P

[Siyra]

And sorry, no. My TARDIS is in the shop for work on it's Chameleon Circuit. :P

Har har.