Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!uwvax!umn-d-ub!cs.umn.edu!nis!wd0gol!newave!john
From: john@newave.UUCP (John A. Weeks III)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: 21st Century UN*X - Bugs??
Message-ID: <48@newave.UUCP>
Date: 19 Feb 90 04:01:15 GMT
References: <2198@syma.sussex.ac.uk> <1990Feb17.151104.10132@virtech.uucp>
Reply-To: john@newave.mn.org (John A. Weeks III)
Organization: NeWave Communications Ltd, Eden Prairie, MN
Lines: 33

In article <1990Feb17.151104.10132@virtech.uucp> cpcahil@virtech.UUCP (Conor P. Cahill) writes:
>
>A second part of the issue is that lots of software has been written
>assuming that the year is allways 19xx.  This kind of software is not
>limited to UNIX.  When 2000 comes around lots of software will break.

I heard a story like this last year when the Emperor of Japan died.  It
seems that Japan names its years after the current Emperor.  When Herohito
passed away, a great deal of money was spent converting programs to the
new date system named after the new emperor.

For example, if emperor Foo dies after ruling for 23 years, and he is
followed by emperor Bar, the date changes from Foo 23 to Bar 1.

The big problem in Japan's case is that you really cannot predict when the
emperor is going to die.  Would it be sensible to spend a lot of time to
allow for the case of changing dates after the emperor dies if the 
emperor was rather young.  There is a good chance that your program would
be long obsolete before the date system changes.

If anyone on the net has any more hard details on this, please feel
free to post.

-john-

[In general, anything dealing with dates in computer programs is a
big pain in the butt.]

-- 
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John A. Weeks III               (612) 942-6969               john@newave.mn.org
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