Sir: I take issue with Charles Arthur's assertion that the Y2K problem is caused by programmers "whose fault all this is, if you'd forgotten" (Millennium Bug Watch, 8 December).
The decision to use two-digit dates was taken for cost reasons (memory was very expensive then). This happened over 30 years ago and the Y2K problem was recognised at least a decade ago (I knew about it during my school years in 1988).
Why then have the industry management and government taken so long to pull their heads out of the sand? The usual reason: it never occurred to them that to understand a complex subject well enough to make policy decisions takes time and effort (which of course is of no short-term managerial or electoral benefit to them).
MARK REARDON
Leeds
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