Re: The Great Year-2000 Hoax!

On Fri, 18 Oct 1996 14:38:13 -0700, Blake Kadatz <blake_kadatz@mindlink.bc.ca> posted: >Christopher B. Browne wrote: >> *All* of the problems represented design flaws, as any reasonably >> forward-thinking design would have extended the date type to >> YYYYMMDD, and removed all need for "cleverness." > >This brings up an interesting point: how does this relate in terms of >liability? Could one argue that the code written was flawed, therefore >it is up to the developer to ensure that the code is corrected? There's always lots of weasel-words in contracts; one of the advantages to doing work as an external consultant. I have no doubt but that the issue was brought up, and the design with all its flaws was approved by management, who are, after all, the people controlling purse-strings. Their disbelief in the importance of other issues ("flaws") of similar importance would make it hard to argue that everything was *not* done with full approval of people all the way up the corporate ladder. (It's not unlikely that you do business with the client I'm thinking of; they're one of the larger of the "evil banks" based in Eastern Canada.) -- Christopher B. Browne, cbbrowne@unicomp.net, chris_browne@sdt.com Web: http://www.conline.com/~cbbrowne SAP Basis Consultant, UNIX Guy Windows NT - How to make a 100 MIPS Linux workstation perform like an 8 MHz 286