From the Editor
IEEE Software, Vol. 16, No. 3, May/June 1999
Y2K: Countdown to Certification
2:55 AM, DECEMBER 31, 1999, SEATTLE. Y2K
night owls tuned to CNN are watching New Year’s Eve celebrations in
Christchurch New Zealand, which is 21 hours ahead of Seattle. Pre-midnight
reports in Christchurch focus on women in labor and the critical question of
who will deliver the first Y2K baby—a child destined for fame, fortune, and
a year’s supply of baby food. At 3:01 A.M. Seattle time, CNN cuts away from
Christchurch to Auckland due to technical difficulties. A few minutes later,
after numerous broadcast problems, CNN replaces live camera coverage from
New Zealand with stock photos of a person sitting next to a radio and buzzy
audio commentary from a New Zealand ham radio operator.
Y2K watchers throughout Asia and Europe head to gas
stations to top off their gas tanks, only to find that runs have already
desiccated gasoline supplies. In the U.S., cash machines have been empty for
days, in spite of the government’s printing $200 billion extra currency for
Y2K hoarding.
At 5:00 A.M. Seattle time, Sydney, Australia enters the new
millennium. On CNN, Bernard Shaw comments how the clever Aussies have made
lights blink throughout the city as midnight approaches, but shortly after
midnight much of the city goes dark. Y2K experts aren’t surprised since 75
percent of Australian businesses indicated in early 1999 that had no
intention of doing any Y2K planning.
News of assorted problems trickles in throughout the day.
At 4:01 P.M. Seattle time (12:01 A.M. Greenwich Mean Time), engine firmware
in long haul container trucks calculates that it has been 99 years since the
engines’ last scheduled maintenance and shuts down the engines to avoid
safety problems. Thousands of trucks are rendered immobile until they
receive servicing. Stalled trucks cause widespread gridlock. Millions of
motorists are stranded.
At 11:59 P.M. New York City time, 8:59 P.M. Seattle time,
Seattle television watchers see Times Square’s fabled ball begin its
descent. At the stroke of midnight, television viewers are disappointed as
Times Square experiences a complete power failure. A spokesman for Con
Edison assures CNN that it has activated its Y2K backup plan, and that power
will be restored quickly. Power is restored within an hour, but intermittent
brownouts recur for days.
At 11:00 P.M. Pacific time, a divide-by-zero error in the
national power grid software sends 65,535 times the normal power load to
Taos, New Mexico. The power spike amplifies the famous low frequency Taos
Hum by several thousand percent, which causes intense harmonic resonance
within certain human skulls. Many northern New Mexico residents are left
permanently deaf.
By the time midnight arrives in Seattle, most millennium
celebrations have been cancelled due to widespread traffic gridlock, power
outages, and general grumpiness. Honolulu, Hawaii turns out to be the
location of choice. It is three hours later than Seattle and Los Angeles and
a full 24 hours later than New Zealand because of New Zealand’s daylight
savings time. Software in some hotel HVAC systems fails, but the nighttime
temperature is comfortable and the tropical revelers adapt simply by adding
more ice to their midnight Mai Tai’s.
Aftermath
In the weeks following the millennium cutover, the biggest
problem turns out to be clearing the roadways. Economists estimate that only
1/10 of 1 percent of the world’s trucks failed in operation midnight January
1, 2000, but that is enough to tie up traffic, impede repairs to the trucks
themselves, and delay power and telephone repairs. Repair crews take a week
to get the roadways back to normal. By February 1, power, telephone, and
financial operations have largely been restored, although intermittent
outages continue much more frequently than normal for the next year. Loss of
power and traffic gridlock in northern climates is blamed for dozens of
weather-related deaths.
What at first appears to be a massive Y2K infestation on
Windows machines turns out to be a large number of uncoordinated virus
attacks propagated via the internet and activated by the millennium
changeover. Isolation of the viruses takes many days as experts struggle to
differentiate artificially caused Y2K virus problems from legitimate Y2K
bugs.
Most businesses are disrupted to some extent, if not by
their own Y2K problems, by Y2K problems in the businesses they depend on.
Many companies are forced to revert to manual processes. Older workers come
out of retirement for several weeks to train younger workers on the manual
processes. Once computer systems are working again, 10 to 15 percent of
business computer systems are never reactivated. Company spokesmen are
quoted as saying, "We realized that computer automation had actually
interfered with our ability to serve our customers."
At the community level, in response to the adversity,
entire neighborhoods band together to share water, food, and heat. Forced to
spend time away from modern amenities, people discover that playing Yahtzee
and Scrabble with their families is more enjoyable than watching syndicated
reruns of Married With Children. Many software developers use the
computer down time to catch up on their back issues of IEEE Software.
By mid-March, most serious Y2K problems have been resolved,
but they have hardly been forgotten, and public attention turns to assigning
blame for the Y2K problems. Programmers make an easy target. The public is
outraged when it learns that thousands of software developers made fortunes
performing Y2K fixes that didn’t actually work. It insists that "something
be done about these opportunistic bit twiddlers."
In testimony before Congress, a representative from the
National Cosmetology Association points out that software development is the
only trade that has as much potential impact on the public welfare and has
no certification requirements whatsoever. She points out that
cosmetologists, doctors, nurses, lawyers, veterinarians, engineers,
architects, public school teachers, accountants, actuaries, pilots, truck
drivers, taxi drivers, general contractors, financial advisers, stock
brokers, and food handlers are all required to have some kind of license
that assures they pose a minimal risk to the public’s safety. A resolution
to require licensing of software developers passes by a wide margin, the
only dissenting votes coming from the states of California, Massachusetts,
Utah, and Washington.
Shortly thereafter, Congress discovers that the State of
Texas already has a law that requires licensing of professional software
engineers. A blue ribbon panel from the ACM and IEEE Computer Society
endorse Texas’s program. Consensus quickly forms to require other states to
license software engineers in the same way. Congress passes a law that
withholds 10 percent of a state’s crime prevention funding until the state
adopts a licensing program for software engineers. With strong public
support, by the end of 2000 more than 40 states have passed legislation
based on Texas’s model.
Certification
In 2001, following states’ adoption of certification laws,
widespread confusion about the laws prevails. State laws are quickly revised
to describe the kinds of software designs that must be signed off by a
licensed professional engineer. Software packages sold commercially or
included in hardware that is sold commercially must be signed off, as must
software work for which one company charges another. Systems developed by
companies with their own programmers for their own in-house use are not
required to be signed off.
Realizing that only a handful of universities in North
America offer undergraduate software engineering programs, laws are also
revised to allow a ten-year phase-in period. During that time land, grant
colleges are required to develop and offer accredited software engineering
programs. The President of the United States declares a national state of
emergency, conscripts leading software experts, and forces them to do two
year tours of duty in Pullman, Washington; Bozeman, Montana; College
Station, Texas; Ames, Iowa; Ithaca, New York; and other land grant college
towns. As the ten-year phase-in period draws to a close, corporations
compete fervidly for these programs’ first graduating classes.
Outside the universities, some old-time software developers
pass rigorous grandfather certification criteria based on the Texas
program—at least 16 years of experience performing engineering work and
references from 9 people, 5 of whom must be professional engineers. Many old
timers don’t bother with certification. In practice, most organizations need
only a handful of professional engineers to meet regulatory requirements,
and the market value of a "P.E." or "P.Eng." turns out to be about $5,000
per year.
Coda
In memory of lives lost during the Y2K cutover, U.S. universities adopt a
program modeled on a Canadian program for engineers. Software engineers who
graduate from accredited universities in the U.S. are given a small ring
worn on the left pinky finger. These rings are ostensibly made of steel
recycled from computers that failed on midnight, December 31, 1999, and
remind software engineers of the serious responsibility they carry as
members of the software engineering profession.
Editor: Steve McConnell, Construx Software, 11820 Northup
Way #E200, Bellevue, WA 98005.
E-mail: steve.mcconnell@construx.com
- WWW:
http://www.construx.com/stevemcc/
