Re: Question: How will the Year 2000 bug impact your work?

In article <547t37$1r9@portal.gmu.edu> jholm@osf1.gmu.edu (Juliana L Holm) writes: >Terry Pennington (terryp@accessone.com) wrote: >: James Buss wrote: >: > >: > Of course, I don't see what the big deal is about typing 19 in front of >: > all my dates. >: > >: > Jim. >: It's not that YOU have to type the '19' in front of dates, it's the >: users that whine about it. Two more characters per date and the next >: thing you know there's no time to gather 'round the water cooler and >: chat about the kiddies and kitties. >Actually it's neither of those things. It's when the programs that run >your system do MATH with the dates. For example, when they try to >figure your salary for the week that spans 1999 and 2000 and find out >that you should be paid for -99 years! Did you really want that check? Quit being an alarmist! :-/ You know perfectly well that the key to it all is in the representation. If the date is stored YYYYMMDD or in any database date or date/time type, then the year is unambiguous and date calculations are or can be perfectly accurate. Yes the calendar is a niggling strange thing, but if your database doesn't support dates then your shop probably has a nice set of assembler routines that do. >The problem becomes more involved when you realize that lots of computer >programs, especially human resources ones, look ahead at dates a lot. >Like when will your 401K vest? When will that loan be paid off? Do you >really want a car payment FOREVER?? You're definitely being an alarmist, Julie. :-( >ANd it becomes even more involved when you realize that some of these >routines are hidden in legacy code. >My company is getting into the business of these conversions, and this >is just he barest tip of the tip of the iceberg. Uh huh, I thought so. Good luck in your business. :-[