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Like economists, programmers disagree. Here is one survey of practicing mainframe programmers who have done their best to assess the threat to the economy of y2k.
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Computer experts predict hard times at century end, urge immediate action by government and private industry.
July 24, 1997
Submitted by Cory Hamasaki http://www.kiyoinc.com/HHResCo.html
Organized by Phil Edwards, an international group of 38 computer experts and Year 2000 researchers cast votes that predicted hard times at the end of the century.
Voting on a scale of 1 to 5, the experts used the Delphi Technique and the Internet to predict the future of the civilized world.
Mr. Edwards defined the scale as follows and challenged the Internet Newsgroup, Comp.Software.Year-2000, to take a stand on the Y2K problem.
5 = probable collapse of economy; start hoarding now.
3 = bump in the road; 80-hour weeks for all, 1999-2001.
1 = it ain't gonna happen.
The results were collected and tabulated by Tim Oxler
The 38 respondants had a total of 669.5 years of experience (an average of 17.6 years).
The average score was: 150.6 / 38 = 3.96 which implies serious problems with the world's computer systems.
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