Re: Impossible Database Design?

mAsterdam wrote:
> Marshall wrote:
> >
> > Seconded. Why not state a more realistic requirement, such as:
> > support events up to 1000 years in the future? 1000 is much,
> > much less than infinite, and so has the advantage of being actually
> > possible.
> >
> > Also remember Scott McNealy's comment: "Most software
> > has the shelf life of a banana." Your software probably won't
> > still be in use in even 10 years.
>
> Also remember that knowing that people actually built
> software with that assumption led to the millennium paranoia.

It is a fair point. But that was people building systems with less than 50 years of headroom. It turns out some systems last that long. I am fairly confident that no software built during my lifetime will be in use 100,000 years from now; probably not even 1000 years from now.

> Arbitrary limits where none are logically
> necessary have quite a track-record (640Kb anyone?).

If you don't put any limit in the dates you can specify, you still have the physical limits of the computer, as Bob pointed out. I think there are a lot of fine compromises; there are a *lot* of distinct values in a 64 bit number.

Marshall Received on Wed May 17 2006 - 17:32:34 CEST