The world s information systems have had a complete work-over and they are now passing the physical. Ed Yourdon made another forecast at a software quality conference in Dublin in November 1999 that is, in my opinion, more likely because it is a continuation of existing practices. Maybe we'll get another chance. In theory, there are faint ripples possible later. But I'm not expecting any great level of incidence there.
Some people warn of slow hidden degradation in systems and data.
However, no evidence has yet emerged to support this, and no convincing mechanism has been proposed. The comments that have appeared have generally been unscientific and poorly worded, indicating an inadequate grasp of the construction of software and systems. Author Patrick O'Beirne is a software quality consultant, trainer, speaker, and author.