Time Bomb 2000: What the Year 2000 Computer Crisis Means to You! Revised & Updated Edition [Paperback]

Edward Yourdon (Author), Jennifer Yourdon (Author)

Book Description

Series: Yourdon Press Computing Series | Publication Date: January 29, 1999

Time Bomb 2000 has become a world-wide bestseller because it doesn't just tell you that there's a Y2K crisis on the way: it spells out how to evaluate your personal risks -- and what you can do about them. As the crunch draws closer, this new edition is essential reading for everyone. Based on the absolute latest information, you'll learn what problems are likely to occur, how they will impact individuals and society, and what you can do to prepare. You'll find updated coverage of virtually every major aspect of society, including communications, power distribution, transportation, finance, travel, medicine, social services, education and employment - with expert assessments of the probabilities -- and consequences -- of failure. Best of all, you'll also find practical contingency plans and fallback positions if the worst happens.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Unlike many Y2K books available, Time Bomb 2000 offers a programmer's point of view on the issue--Edward Yourdon is a software engineer and the author of the well-regarded Yourdon Computing Series for software development. (His coauthor, Jennifer, is his daughter.)

While the Yourdons occasionally use Internet-based Y2K slang, such as TEOTWAWKI (which, for the uninitiated, means "the end of the world as we know it"), it's not likely that they'll be carving out space in a hillside somewhere. They do project a life very different from the one that currently exists, but advocate a commonsense approach to the impending crisis.

To that end, Time Bomb 2000 provides a chapter on each of the areas of infrastructure weakness: public utilities, transportation (automobiles included), banking and finance, news channels, hospitals, telephone and mail services, the U.S. government (social security, food stamps, the IRS, the Defense Department, and a brief overview of state and local agencies). A small portion of the book deals with the question of international economies. Each segment ends with advice on any one of four scenarios: facing a 2-day, 1-month, 1-year, or 10-year failure of each of the given systems. An informative look at what may well be a central issue for us all, Time Bomb 2000 provides important information without trying to answer the unanswerable. --Jennifer Buckendorff

From Library Journal

Optimists may be gleefully eyeing the approaching millennium with great expectations of the innovation that will undoubtedly accompany its dawning, but those with perhaps a more grounded gaze see January 1, 2000, as the day of reckoning for computers and their infinite applications everywhere. The Yourdons (Edward is the author of 25 computer books) offer a doomsday scenario of what life might be like if techno gurus aren't able to correct, on a universal scale, an oversight born when programmers failed to see the significance of the double zeros at the beginning of year 2000. Will ATMs work on January 1 of that year? Will medical devices work? Social Security checks arrive? Will basic services like electricity, water, mail, and food delivery be affected? No one is claiming to know everything for sure, but the Yourdons' harrowing account of what life could be like if computers all shut down at once is both frightening and useful for the solutions it offers. For all computer collections.?Geoff Rotunno, "Tri-Mix" Magazine, Goleta, Cal.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 672 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall Ptr; 2 Sub edition (January 29, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130205192
• ISBN-13: 978-0130205193
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,334,509 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice. . ., February 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Time Bomb 2000: What the Year 2000 Computer Crisis Means to You! Revised & Updated Edition (Paperback)

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.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Ed's a charlatan, August 24, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Time Bomb 2000!: What the Year 2000 Computer Crisis Means to You! (Paperback)

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.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars What a joke., January 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Time Bomb 2000!: What the Year 2000 Computer Crisis Means to You! (Paperback)

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.