From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_40,INVALID_DATE autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!iuvax!purdue!haven!grebyn!karl From: karl@grebyn.com (Karl Nyberg) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: of a year, years, and half a year (was Re: (none)) Message-ID: <13711@grebyn.com> Date: 4 Sep 89 13:28:53 GMT References: <8909022213.AA06286@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu> <2007@munnari.oz.au> Organization: Grebyn Corp. List-Id: In article <2007@munnari.oz.au> ok@cs.mu.oz.au (Richard O'Keefe) writes: >In article <8909022213.AA06286@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu>, cdonalds@AJPO.SEI.CMU.EDU writes: >: The year 1990 marks the start of a new decade and the end of >: one in which the Ada language came of age, in terms of use >: and acceptability. What better time to reflect on the >: experiences of Ada users throughout that time and to look to >: the future in the light of that experience. > >Ahem. 1990 is the LAST year of the decade 1981-1990. >Just as 2000 will be the LAST year of this century and millenium, >not the first year of the next. > >If ADA.people get such blatant off-by-one errors in their specs, >can their code be any better? [ponderous humour] Ada is spelled thus. What else don't you know? [imponderous humor] According to Webster's New Collegiate, 8th Edition: decade : 1 : a group or set of 10 ; 2 : a period of 10 years ; ... millenium : 1 a period of 1000 years ; ... No indication on the lower bound. I'm surprised that C.hackers (of all people) wouldn't start with 0-based counting (like their poor arrays, K&R, 1.6, p 20), making the current millenium from 1000 .. 1999, and the current decade of the 1980s from 1980 .. 1989. Then the year 1990 would indeed MARK the end of the current decade (known as the eighties, as all the years are of the form 198[0-9]) and begin the first year of the nineties. I can't fathom what DECADE we would call the years 1981 - 1990 (inclusive), but there's probably some name for it... Of course, all this wonderful analysis gets blown away by the fact that the year 1 BC is followed immediately by the year 1 AD (BCE, or whatever your religious conviction allows you to say). Suffer the discontinuities of this concept of time (running from negative infinity to -1, followed by 1 to plus infinity, again depending upon your religions conviction), make the first decade of the current era have only 9 years, change the common meaning of things like "the eighties", the "nineteenth century", there are dozens of options. And throw in the missing months during the calendar change, leap years, leap seconds, add various timezones for the folks in Australia, ... But I digress. Maybe somebody can make this another Ada 9X language issue. I just love having more language issues for 9X. It'll give me something to do this winter and spring! :-) -- Karl -- Disclaimer: Opinions (such as they might be!) expressed herein are mine, all mine, and are not intended to be the official position of the Ada 9X program, the Requirements Team (of which I am a member), or any other person or organization, now living or dead. Any similarities to events, current or past are unintentional.