Xref: utzoo comp.sys.ibm.pc:30540 comp.sys.atari.st:17326
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!mtuxo!mtgzz!drutx!druhi!terrell
From: terrell@druhi.ATT.COM (TerrellE)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Will Your SW Make it to the year 2000?
Message-ID: <4342@druhi.ATT.COM>
Date: 23 Jun 89 15:20:48 GMT
Reply-To: terrell@druhi.ATT.COM (TerrellE)
Organization: AT&T, Denver, CO
Lines: 27

Will your software make it into the 21st century?  Does it cope with the
Gregorian calendar reform of the 16th century?

I was amused to find that allegedly state of the art scheduling software, 
TimeLine, is broken for the year 2000.  So is MS DOS.

The Gregorian calendar reform makes every year evenly divisible by 4 a
leap year EXCEPT for century years.  Consequently there is no January 29,
2000.

Perhaps software developers are following in the footsteps of the 
Protestants who refused to recognize Pope Gregory's reform, saying that
they'd rather be out-of-synch with the sun than in-synch with Rome!

How much other software is broken?

Consider this business opportunity:  Form a company "21st Century Software".
Wait until about 1998, and then offer a cheap consulting service to determine
if customer computer systems will be broken in 2000.  Then for a higher
price, offer to fix the problem.  Of course the rates will rapidly increase
as February 28 draws nigh and payroll managers cower in fear...





Terrell	(att!druhi!terrell)