Date:         Sat, 20 Nov 1999 15:42:57 +1100
Reply-To:     Tim CHURCHES <TCHUR@DOH.HEALTH.NSW.GOV.AU>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Tim CHURCHES <TCHUR@DOH.HEALTH.NSW.GOV.AU>
Subject:      Re: Your suggestion
Comments: To: theodp@AOL.COM
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

>>> Theo DP <theodp@AOL.COM> 11/19/99 06:14pm >>> writes:
> >Subject: Re: Your suggestion
> > ...snip...
> >Guess where next year's dataset will sort... It would have been really nice
> >to have been able
> >to fix this by extending the dataset names by 2 characters to DEATHS1999 etc,
> >but SI completely
> >missed the deadline for shipping a production Version 8 which would have
> >allowed this.
> >Tim Churches
>
> After wading through COBOL and PL/I Y2K hell for a couple of years now, you
> have no idea how trival your Y2K gripes sound. :-)

You have my sympathies - we reviewed all our SAS code for Y2K problems and didn't find a single
which would have caused problems. However, what is not trivial is length of time SI have taken to get
Version 8 to production stage and the SAS license fees which we have all paid in the meantime - these
fees are supposed to, at least in part, fund upgrades, but this doesn't seem like such a good idea when
the delivery of upgrades is so protracted - SI's attitude seems to be "we'll ship Version 8 when we are
good'n'ready, and in the meantime, you keep paying us those fat license fees...". Now, what would be
more palatable would be if SI announced a (reasonable) shipping date for its next version, and then gave
(small) discounts off their license fees for every month they exceeded that deadline. OK, I know that building
quality software is hard and the science of software project planning is very inexact, but that sort of financial
incentive would certainly focus the minds of everyone at SI and also keep faith with SAS users.

Tim Churches