[NTLUG:Discuss] Bob Bemer: The Aftermath of Y2K

[Stuart Yarus]

The DFW Unix Users Group invites you to a talk by Bob Bemer on "The
Aftermath of Y2K: What Happened and What Can We Expect".   Mr. Bemer's talk
will be at 7 PM on Thursday, January 6, 19100 at Silicon Graphics in
Dallas.  For directions and other information, please see
<http://www.dfwuug.org>.

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Some background on Mr. Bemer:

Bob Bemer, becoming a programmer in early 1949, has worked at RAND
Corporation, Marquardt, Lockheed, IBM, Univac, Bull GE, General Electric,
and Honeywell.

o He is recognized as the first person in the world to publish warnings of
the Year 2000 problem. For this he has appeared on CNET, NBC Nightly News,
CNN, Good Morning America, and several local TV stations. He has been
profiled in the Wall Street Journal, New Yorker, New York Times, Time
Magazine, Vanity Fair, the Baltimore Sun, Scripps newpaper chain, the
Washington Post, and many others. 

o At IBM, he developed 

  PRINT I (the first load-and-go computer method), 
  FORTRANSIT (the first major proof of intercomputer portability, and the
second FORTRAN compiler), 
  Commercial Translator (a COBOL input), and 
  XTRAN (an ALGOL predecessor). 

o The Identification and Environment Divisions of COBOL are due to him, as
is the Picture Clause, which could have avoided the Year 2000 problem if
used correctly. 

o He coined the terms "COBOL", "CODASYL", and "Software Factory". 

o He was a major factor in developing ASCII (contributing 6 characters --
ESCape (see that key), FS, GS, RS, US, and the backslash, and invented the
escape sequence and registry concept). For these he is called the "Father
of ASCII". 

o He wrote the original scope and program of work for national and
international computer standards, and chaired the international committee
for programming languages for eleven years. 

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>From a description of his talk:

Some, if any, Y2K effects will be apparent as I report. Individually we
can't do too much about them, unless we had prepared. But four very
important problems remain: 

1) The hidden effects of Y2K, in corrupting data not yet used, and not
visible. 

2) Date data mostly remains uncorrected. Most people just patched the
situation. Will they now, having some time to really fix those
century-disadvantaged dates, step up and actually do it? Or will they again
procrastinate until the crisis comes anew? 

3) Our world is still being controlled by computers, people having
abdicated. Can we afford a worsening? 

4) Present software is generally of low quality, redundant, and far too
expensive because it is still handmade. 

Of course it's the fault of those other programmers; you didn't do it.
Nevertheless, the world is not all UNIX. What can you do? 


Stuart Yarus
BEA Systems, Inc. 			voice:	972-943-5041
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Suite 500				email:	syarus at beasys.com
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