A visualization tool for Y2K

• Published in: Computer (Long Beach, Calif.) Vol. 31; no. 10; pp. 63 - 69
• Main Author: Eick, S.G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.10.1998; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Application software; COBOL; Costs; Debugging; History; Information technology; Portfolios; Pressing; Software; Software tools; Strategic planning; Testing; Visualization; Year 2000
• ISSN: 0018-9162; 1558-0814
• DOI: 10.1109/2.722291

To facilitate Y2K conversions, Bell Laboratories has developed a Y2K visualization tool. The input to the tool is the output of commercially available Cobol parsing tools that identify lines potentially affected by Y2K. While these tools are extremely useful, their output is daunting. Presenting this output visually increases assessment productivity by as much as 80 percent. Visualization also improves conversion quality by suggesting more-informed and efficient repair strategies. This visualization tool is based on the idea that no one view is sufficient to answer important questions concerning Y2K. It therefore provides a suite of tightly coupled, linked views. Each view is engineered for a particular task, is interactive, and is used for both display and analysis. Linking between views causes interactive operations to propagate instantly in each view. The authors report that the results to date have been promising. In one case, the time required for assessment and conversion strategy development dropped from three weeks to three days.