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=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,92471489ebbc99c6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: dewarr@my-dejanews.com Subject: Re: Y2K Issues Date: 1998/10/27 Message-ID: <713nvs$cv8$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 405480963 References: <362B53A3.64E266AB@res.raytheon.com> <362B8D2F.802F42E6@lmco.com> <710nnc$jop@felix.seas.gwu.edu> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x11.dejanews.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 202.135.47.101 Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion X-Article-Creation-Date: Tue Oct 27 06:07:57 1998 GMT Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/3.0 (Win95; I) Date: 1998-10-27T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <710nnc$jop@felix.seas.gwu.edu>, mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) wrote: > Unlike the Y2K "problem", which is caused by the unintended > consequences of an old but intentional engineering decision > (2-digit years in the days of expensive storage), the leap-year > bug is a _bug_, and is, apparently much more widespread than > just this Microsoft case. In scouring code for the 2-digit > problem, they are discovering the bug as well. > > Amazing. Where did these people go to school? I object to Mike characterizing the Y2K problem as other than a bug. yes I know that this is a popular attitude, particularly encouraged by software companies who want you to pay for Y2K "enhancements", but the fact remains it is indeed a bug. Saving storage at the expense of malfunction is not an acceptable trade off. Any reasonably careful programmer should have forseen the problem and dealt with it (using any of the approaches that are familiarly used for "fixing" this "problem", e.g. windowing. Someone reminded me that I first mentioned the Y2K problem to them in 1975, and certainly I was not the only one to forsee this problem. Unless the specification of the problem specifically noted that the software was intended to stop working in 2000, introducing this kind of bug into programs was indeed a bug. Just because a bug is a huge one with horrible consequences does not stop it being a bug! Note that the storage usage argument is a weak one. Many of the Y2K solutions solve the problem without using extra storage (fixed and sliding windows, various encodings etc). Robert Dewar -----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==---------- http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own