Jim,
I know the point of this thread was to determine that it has been possible to write Y2K compliant code in all versions of FoxPro, and not to make a general statement on responsibility, but it touches on the larger concept of taking responsibility for our own code (and our actions in general), rather than pushing that responsibility to MS or Fox or anywhere other than ourselves.
Your response reminded me of the Perl Y2K FAQ: "Lawyers Liars and Perl" by Tom Christiansen at:
http://www.perl.com/pub/1999/01/y2k.htmlHere is an excerpt that echoes what you say very well, I think:
The insidious, underlying root cause of this entire problem is neither the hardware nor the software. No, that would be too easy; that we know how to fix. Just apply a few hundred billion dollars, and voilà, it's all taken care of.
Unfortunately, that's not it. The real problem is the wetware. That's right: the defect lies not in our computers, nor in their programming, but rather in ourselves.
Most of the time that people think about dates, they use only the final two digits of the year. They write it on checks. They write in family Bibles. You hear someone casually say, ``I remember back in '65,'' or ``the Generation of '98 had their collective consciousness shaken to the roots by their astonishing defeat to the Americans in the Caribbean,'' and you're just supposed to know what they mean. Just which 65 is that? Assuming a living speaker, it provably has to be 1965. But just which 98 was that? Why, it was not the current year, but rather way back in 1898, when Spain lost the remainder of their decrepit empire to those upstart New Worlders and subsequently succumbed to a national soul-searching that permeated throughout their literature of that age. In both cases, you resolve the ambiguity by inferring the full year from the context, of course. But if you don't have that context, then you just have to guess. And remember: computers make notoriously bad guessers.Best,
Bill
