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development

Y-2010

January 6, 2010 21:32:05.537

When I read stories like this, I end up feeling a whole lot better about my own code. An astonishing number of systems had trouble with the changeover from 2009 to 2010:

Chips used in bank cards to identify account numbers could not read the year 2010 properly, making it impossible for ATMs and point of sale machines in Germany to read debit cards of 30 million people since New Year's Day, according to published reports. The workaround is to reprogram the machines so the chips don't have to deal with the number.

To get that, you would have to have your software assume the first three digits of the year and just add the last one - apparently, some developer just assumed "of course this won't be running in 2010". The hilarious part is that this happened so soon after the whole "just assume the leading 19" thing from the last century's software...

posted by James Robertson

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