Re: Silver Bullet melt down -Again -- MIDRANGE-L


##This is magnitudes less then the original claims and  to focused to do any
real good.  As for price below a few hundred dollars given the right
circumstances - which are very narrow.  In todays world of Y2K tool vendors
this is nothing but an extract from sometihing.

In a message dated 97-06-11 02:10:53 EDT, you write:

<< I realize you may be tired of hearing about this, but I feel it necessary
to
 complete the report.

## YOU'RE RIGHT!  And ADVERTIZEMENTS ARE PROHIBITED !!
 
 Today, (NameSensored) and his partner invited some companies in to see a
demo of  this product - "The (NameSensored) for the AS/400" or Bleep/400.
I'll
 summarize the results from my notes. Disclaimer: I may have misunderstood
 parts of the demonstration. Anything I misunderstood I will publicly
 acknowledge:
 
 ## OK ,any thing you say (??)

 - The product converts dates within a physical file
 
 - The product produces a report of the files changed, and the logicals
 rebuilt.
 - There are plans of building a report which will list the lines of code
 effected by the file changes, so the programmer can go in and manually
change
 the code.
## CRAP
 - There are plans to build a version for non-US date standards.
 - For beyond 2000, the Ammo box will provide tools for file conversion that
 can be used for such tasks as Euro-money conversion.

 ##      BIGGER TASK then you all think !!

 ##   only 35  date field limit - How many do you think there are in an Appl?

 - There is a limit of 35 fields available for date fields. Each of these has
 to be hand entered, telling the program where they reside. There is no
 interface to any impact analysis tool.
 - The program is totally dependent upon field reference files. If you do not
 have field reference files, you cannot use the program.
 - The program will not handle S/36 files nor the S/36 environment.
 - The program will not make any program changes.
 - The program will only run on OS/400 V3R2 or above. There is no backward
 compatibility.
 - Source is not available to value-added resellers. Any improvements must be
 completed by (Bleep).
  
 - The claim to change 100% of dates was mollified. The current claim is that
 the product handles 100% of the dates tested. They do not guarantee to
 convert 100% of the dates in the field.
 - The claim to not need an impact analysis was explained. They regard an
 impact analysis as a report of how much code will have to be modified to
 become Y2K compliant. They are not aware of having to deal with a business
 impact analysis.
 - One of the attendees suggested that a better name would be the Silver
 Shovel.  
## Uh-Ha  The new claims will keep the lawyers from lining up in deep deep
rows

 Encapsulation wasn't mentioned. 

##NOT good on 400 and last choice for all . Is a  short term quick/temporary
fix ( save your ass) from toatl failure  for lak of source code that  =
object.
 
 Because of restrictions on the lists, I cannot post the price and
 availability. However, you can e-mail me directly to get that information.

## NO

 Hope this was useful.
 
 Hank Heath
  >>

root
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