This is what I think of as "The Burden of Proof".
I always have a problem in "proving" what I say. My utterances are based on my personal observations and experiences so I cannot come up with a whole list of references and sources.
So with Cinderella I have had to adopt a somewhat overkill policy. The methods for evaluation "in the home" have to be laboriously created by means of step by step "cookbooks".
Test suites have to be designed for each major software project and then exhaustively tested. The results are very slow in coming because this process just slurps time, a scarce resource.
A new hassle factor has emerged. I find that even my fairly extensive archives do not contain all the necessary versions of programs, so I am having to scratch around to find copies of older critical suites.
I could have just said up front "Y2K is not a major problem for smaller PC users".
But people would not have believed this. There are also certain persons who would vigorously oppose this statement as it conflicts with their own moneymaking agendas.
Don't get me wrong. I have to chase the bucks like everybody else, but I object when deliberate "clutter" or "noise" is introduced "for marketing purposes".
In a way, Y2K is really not my problem. I have proved to my own satisfaction that my own system will survive the Holocaust. I could just shut up shop and get on with my life. But I just happen to want to do this exercise.
So now I have to "prove" the assumption. It is always very difficult to "prove" a negative. The only way that I can see a way to do this, is to assume a problem exists, gather huge amounts of empirical evidence and let the evidence speak for itself.
I predict that the end result will be:
"Y2K is not a major problem for smaller PC users".