Two Digits for a Date
          
(sung to the tune of "Gilligans Island", more or less)

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
Of the doom that is our fate,
That started when programmers used
Two digits for a date.
Two digits for a date.

Main memory was much smaller then;
Hard disks were smaller, too.
"Four digits are extravagant,
So let's get by with two.
So let's get by with two."

"This works through nineteen-ninety-nine,"
The programmers did say.
"When we rewrite it in good time,
It all will go away.
It all will go away."

But Management had not a clue.
"That does not make much sense.
Why rewrite a thing that works
At God-knows what expense?
At God-knows what expense?"

"Look at the way it works right now,
A work of art, you bet!
We will (of course) rewrite it all
We just won't do it yet.
We just won't do it yet."

Now, when two thousand rolls around,
It all goes straight to hell,
For zeros less than ninety-nine,
As anyone can tell.
As anyone can tell.

The mail won't bring your pension check,
It won't be sent to you
When you're no longer sixty-eight,
But minus thirty-two.
But minus thirty-two.

The problems we're about to face
Are frightening, for sure.
And reading every line of code's
The only certain cure.
The only certain cure.

<key change, big finish>

There's not much time,
There's too much code.
(And COBOL-coders, few.)
When the century is finished with,
We may be finished, too.
We may be finished, too.

Eight thousand years from now I hope
That things weren't left too late,
And people aren't then lamenting
Four digits for a date.
Four digits for a date.

--Author Unknown