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>>For those of you in big-iron, corporate computing environments, this
is *extremely* serious business. (snip) this change will create havoc
when it hits, and very, very few shops are addressing the >>issue.
The reason? Create a list of dates, including dates from this century
and the next, written in the last-two digits style; then try sorting
that list of dates by year. Notice where the dates from the next
century fall. Now, try doing some subtraction. (Say, 1995 from 2004,
or rather: 95 from 04.)<<
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I recently edited a user guide that will be used for a prototype info
mgmt. system at a government agency. The valid date format throughout
the functions is MM/DD/YYYY. At the time, I didn't ask the analyst
why YYYY was being used. I assumed it was to deal with "2000" and
beyond. I'm also assuming that I assumed correctly and this is a fix
for the problem. Does it? Would someone have to write a program to
change all the old MM/DD/YYs when the prototype goes into full
development and links with the old IM systems?
jan (jsummers -at- cclink -dot- logicon -dot- com)
