Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!crdgw1!ge-dab!peora!joel
From: joel@peora.ccur.com (Joel Upchurch)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Will Your SW Make it to the year 2000?
Message-ID: <3892@peora.ccur.com>
Date: 29 Jun 89 18:41:31 GMT
References: <3880@udccvax1.acs.udel.EDU> <1030@krafla.rhi.hi.is> <442@greek.UUCP> <5577@athertn.Atherton.COM>
Organization: Concurrent Computer Corp, Orlando FL
Lines: 22

In article <5577@athertn.Atherton.COM>, jimb@athertn.Atherton.COM (Jim Burke) writes:
> Why all the flap???  Given the giant leaps in software in the  last  ten
> years  (when  P.C.'s  didn't  even exists) does anyone really think that
> software released in 1989 will be relavent at the turn of  the  century?
> I don't know

There isn't any IBM PC software that old, because IBM PCs haven't been
around that long, but there are plenty of mainframe applications that
are over twenty years old. There are applications that have been ported
across several generations of hardware. I bet if you want to dig around
there are probably quite a few people running CPM and Apple II stuff
that is over 10 years old. Custom software especially may remain
unchanged almost forever. The data created by these programs may last
even longer. I'd bet that plenty of the software in use today will still
be around in the year 2000. I'd also bet that plenty of software that
uses 2 digit date fields is going to turn up it toes and die when it
happens. What's worse is that a lot of the souce code for these applications
is going to have disappeared by then.
-- 
Joel Upchurch/Concurrent Computer Corp/2486 Sand Lake Rd/Orlando, FL 32809
joel@peora.ccur.com {uiucuxc,hoptoad,petsd,ucf-cs}!peora!joel
Telephone: (407) 850-1040   Fax: (407) 857-0713