Customer Reviews

Time Bomb 2000!: What the Year 2000 Computer Crisis Means to You!

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

Credit to Ed Yourdon for inventing a new literary niche --pointing out a nonexistent crisis, writing a book about it, then writing another book debunking it! He hasn't, at the time of this review, written a book celebrating victory over the fearmongering that he helped to spark, but I'm certain it will be forthcoming.

Yourdon's last shred of credibility evaporated on 01/01/00. Hopefully he made enough off this book to retire. If he didn't, he's going to need to find a new line of work.

Ed Yourdon is a well-known fake. Years ago, he wrote a book about how the entire US software industry was going to collapse. After it didn't, he had the nerve to write a sequel about how disaster was narrowly averted. Yawn.

Then there was "Death March", where he discusses the problems many software projects face, only to say there is no hope and we are all doomed. Yawn again.

Now, Ed has taken up Y2k as his latest cause. Nevermind all the money he is making from these books, his web page, consulting, speaking, etc. Nevermind he has glossed over facts, and circulated data from well-known Christian Reconstructionist Gary North. Nevermind he claimed that we'd be seeing massive Y2k problems by now in both domestic and foreign governments.

No doubt Ed is already writing a sequel claiming that he helped avert a Y2k crisis. Yawn.

This book isn't worth the paper it's printed on. There isn't a choice for no stars. If there were, I'd give it that.

This book belongs in a museum of "Historical Curiosities", along with Piltdown Man and sea monkeys. The only place for Amazon to put this book would be in the humor section, considering the outrageous "chicken little" predictions of Yourdon and his kind. Ed Yourdon, Gary North, and all the other Y2K nuts are frauds and demagogues, and I am sure it will only be a matter of time before they concoct some new doomsday scheme. I guess they'll find some way to postpone the Apocalypse until their feverish little brains go into overdrive again.

Happy new millennium, everyone!

Mr. Yourdon should stick to fields that he knows something about. His lack of knowledge and sound research in control systems, infrastructure, economics and many business functions are evident.

This book is a sheer waste of ink and paper. I'll never again buy a book by Ed Yourdon, I loose all my confidence on his technical expertise. What a shame !

Whoops! Guess the Bomb was a dud. Don't buy the update, either. See if Ed will give you your moolah back, if he can stop laughing about making money off the public gullibility. Not even the "unprepared" suffered, so don't let him talk you into thinking he saved us.

Ed Yourdon does not know what he is talking about. His examples of Y2K disasters proceed entirely from made-up scenarios of doom and not from any understanding of the underlying processes and code. His examples are ludicrous; absolutely laughable.

The basic premise, that Y2K bugs will cause widespread crashes, is silly enough (try setting the clock on your computer past 2000 and running all your programs; nothing odd happens), but the idea that any computer's crashing will cause the downfall of civilization is outlandish. Computers crash all the time -- there are already processes and infrastructure to deal with it. A whole lot of computers crashing at once could conceivably make things annoying for a while, but more in the nature of slowed-down than stopped.

Here's an example: can the airlines run without computers? Yes. They have complete procedures in place to issue tickets, take tickets, move baggage, etc. without any computers involved. They did it in the 50's;! they can still do it today. It's just slower and more prone to error. Some Airbus planes are dependent on their computers for certain operations, but even they have manual fallbacks. They're not going to fall out of the sky, and they're not going to crash in 2000; it's unlikely that airplane computers pay attention to the date at all.

I cannot stress enough: DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. Don't put another dollar into the hands of someone who is uninformed and milking the hype machine for all it's worth. Check it out from the library if you must.

My grandfather always told me to never believe everything you hear....and this proves that fact.

I'm glad I just borrowed this book. But I think that owning one would be great. It's a real collector's item. I'm sure now the so-called author has been proven so wrong he'll probably come out laughing and say the book was a just a hoax. Y2K aside, the book has some good ideas with regard to basic survial in cases of disaster such as hurricanes and in the long run if the folks who were so afraid of the 2000 rollover, were made more comfortable by the book then it served its purpose.