For Mrs. Johnson to enjoy this luxury, all systems have to operate perfectly. On the one hand, I am not forecasting doom and gloom on January 1, 2000. We may all experience occasional inconveniences. On the other hand, much remains to be done in the short term and in the long term. My main thoughts are on the lessons we are learning from the Y2K issue.
Information technology is an essential part of our future.
It is still in its early stages of development, and it is becoming a more and more important part of our business and personal lives. As a result, we need and must learn to develop systems that are easy to use, flexible to change, and economical to maintain. OCR for page 339 John A. Meyer 339 The quality of most software today is very poor. It is difficult to change, prone to error, and costly to maintain. This is particularly true of application software that has been around for a while.