Re: Dates for 21st Century?
Date: 1995/11/08
Message-ID: <47rdum$bdg_at_what.whytel.com>#1/1
stevec_at_zimmer.CSUFresno.EDU (Steve Cosner) wrote:
>Sorry, but I disagree. 4-digit dates are unnecessary in most systems,
>if you use a little smarter software. I hate to force users to type 4-digit
>years. I know *I* would complain if I had to enter them.
>Except in the odd cases, century can be inferred by the software. We
>do it in all our forms.
>Steve Cosner
Speaking from experience, those odd cases will kill you. You can default the century but you have to allow it to be overridden and therefore your complete system has to be able to carry it. Dealing with GM retirees who have lifetime health care and were born in 1901, what are you going to do in 2002 when their age is calculated in the benefits system? Yes, more and more people are living over 100 years so this is going to be more and more of a problem. Granted it will be a small percent of the data you deal with but we all know that 90% of the problems are caused by 10% of the data. brad stauf DOD# 1824 Received on Wed Nov 08 1995 - 00:00:00 CET