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

Sorry for the post without any input from me. I hit send instead of cancel when the phone rang. I've written financial software since 1984 and have handled the dates with validation programs which check each date and correct the century if necessary. If it's a birthdate, it can't be later than "today". If it's in the financial section it HAS to be later than "today" where "today" can be adjusted to allow for data entry on old data. The dates stored included the century, and the validation/modification was invisible to the user before set century on was available. I still use modifications of these functions for modern date checking. Recently I picked up a shareware calendar library which had limit of 12/31/99 in the calendar page range. No reason -- I set century on, re-set the limit and set century off after it was stored. Works fine, now through 2050, which is what the client asked for. Couldn't believe the built in limit, though. Barbara Paltiel purgamentum init, purgamentum exit *********************** In <326E4BF2.708@perth.ccmail.compuserve.com> Colin Thompson ><Colin_Thompson@perth.ccmail.compuserve.com> writes: >> >>That is an interesting point, but is it correct? Has anyone ever used >>software that calculates a future value for something? Like financial >>software?? What happens if you try to calculate a value past the year >>2000?? >> >>Also, what happens if YOUR suppliers don't become Date 2000 >compliant?? >>Will your business survive if you can't use your EDI links. Simpler >>still, what if the supplier of your core products can no longer find >>your order in their system because it was put entered in 1999 and now >>the system thinks it was put in with a date 99 years into the future?? > > >I was writing financial software in 1984 which calculated 30-year >mortgages. Every date had a validation clause which either allowed >dates earlier than "today" for things like birthdates or later than >"today" for calculated or user-entered financial information. Of >course, "today" was moveable, so users could back-date some >information. > >The switch to dates past year 2000 was invisible to the user. I simply >stored the date correctly in the validation clause. I still use >updated versions of these clauses where necessary. > >Interestingly, I've been using a shareware date lookup program which I >had to re-program because the latest possible date was 12/31/99. >Merely a matter of re-setting a limit, but this was a program I got >within the last year! > >Barbara Paltiel >purgamentum init, purgamentum exit