Especially fun was the "Year 2000" garbage all of the computer systems, including ours, had to go through. It started simply enough (What is the date your real time clock currently states) but dived deep into doing weird shit on a low-level basis that you'd really have to be the designer of the device to perform.
Yes, we had to go through all of our software and custom code to seek out any that used two digit year codes or print formats within the program, remedy it if it existed and prove the code whether the issue was discovered or not. I had written custom code to automate the test floor in the 1980s and was tasked with that review. Fortunately I found no issues, my custom code always used 4 digit formats when printing and in any computations involving the year. A lot of work for nothing.
Yes, it was. Fortunately, none of my stuff cared what the date was. It simply ran tests on telco frames.
The best software engineers are thoughtful, thorough and proactive when possible. You made the grade!
Well...the stuff I was using wasn't my design, - the people who wrote it literally were dead or long retired. When I say this was legacy stuff, it truly was. Beautiful old equipment designed to outlive the war.
But I appreciate their design and try to use those tenets. The device did what is was programmed to do without using extra resources that had no bearing on the outcome of the device. Who cares what time of day it is, all I care about is the frogging circuits work.
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