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Time Bomb 2000 by Edward Yourdon & Jennifer Yourdon Recommended

ISBN: 0 13095 284 2       Publisher: Prentice Hall       Pages: 416pp       Price: £15-99

Categories:   business

Reviewed by Francis Glassborow in C Vu 10-4 (May 1998)

Personally I think that you owe it to yourself to look at the possible problems and decide what, if any, precautions you intend to make.

The authors are pretty dismissive of those that seem largely concerned with the problems of RTC's on PCs but comprehensively survey a wide range of problems that might affect ordinary members of the (US) public. They lay out the possibilities as they see them but leave it to the reader to assess how probable these are. Though entirely from a US perspective much that they suggest translates easily to Europe. We have an added problem of the almost simultaneous introduction of the Euro (I was told recently that this problem is extremely severe in Italy where none of their financial software handles decimal points because there aren't any in lira. As a result their companies have largely triaged Y2K problems.).

I think that it is time to start considering the potential impact on life. For some defensive actions, next year will already be too late. Do not forget the self-fulfilling prophecy. If enough people think that the banking system will collapse, it will.

I think this book provides a balanced view, avoiding both complacency and prophecies of doom. The advice is sensible. It is about preparing for the possible consequences of unfixed computers, computer software and the domino effect of others not fixing theirs even when you have.