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: ff6c8,37e6dbf5e31f6da0 X-Google-Attributes: gidff6c8,public X-Google-Thread: 1108a1,37e6dbf5e31f6da0 X-Google-Attributes: gid1108a1,public X-Google-Thread: f43e6,37e6dbf5e31f6da0 X-Google-Attributes: gidf43e6,public X-Google-Thread: 10db24,37e6dbf5e31f6da0 X-Google-Attributes: gid10db24,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,37e6dbf5e31f6da0 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) Subject: Re: Software Engineering News Brief Date: 1996/11/08 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 195190569 references: <55nqea$32a@news2.delphi.com> <3280BAFA.1B2F@email.mot.com> organization: The Mitre Corp., Bedford, MA. newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.sw.components,comp.object,comp.software-eng,comp.edu Date: 1996-11-08T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <3280BAFA.1B2F@email.mot.com> Tom Reid writes: > Anyone know why they didn't make it a span of 255 years and not waste > digits? Because 1900 was not a leap year, and 2100 will not be a leap year, but 2000 will be a leap year. So 1901 to 2099 is the longest span possible without requiring implementors to include a leap year rule that has never been used in practice. (The rule that years divisible by 400 are leap years, in spite of the rule about years divisible by 100.) I'm sure that the next version of Ada will support a longer range of dates, but I doubt that it will go too far back. In fact, there are areas where Gregorian dates from the beginning of this century are nonsense, since Greece and Russia among others were still using the Julian calendar in 1901. -- Robert I. Eachus with Standard_Disclaimer; use Standard_Disclaimer; function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...