RE: Y2K heads up - is this troub -- MIDRANGE-L

Title: RE: Y2K heads up - is this troub

We store our dates as yyyymmdd but on all of our data entry screens they are entered as

mmddyy. But, we also display the following just to the right of the date - (MMDDYY). This

tells the user what the expected format for entering is.

Debbie

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-midrange-l@midrange.com [mailto:owner-midrange-l@midrange.com]On Behalf Of Falconberry, Ron
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 11:21 AM
To: 'MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com'
Subject: RE: Y2K heads up - is this troub

I believe the original question asked about how a clerk might differentiate between inputting a date such as 01/03/02. Should it be January 3, 2002, March 2, 2001 or March 1, 2002?

The majority of my clients store dates in either yyyymmdd numeric format or *ISO format but write the dates on forms in mm/dd/yy format. Some allow entry on the screen mm/dd/yyyy format and some in mm/dd/yy format, which saves a couple of keystrokes. If the company operates solely in America, that should be sufficient although somewhere on the appropriate forms the company could designate how the dates are expected to be received just to clarify things.

For companies dealing with international vendors, customers or business units, they probably have set a standard or should set a standard format for writing and entering dates, inform the employees of the standards and go from there.

As for the other question, "is this trouble?", I'm sure problems with entering dates like this could be a problem from time to time but, frankly, I don't see that it is going to cause any major calamities.

Incidentally, I don't think a discussion of how "color" is spelled or the definition of "lorry" is relevant to the original question. Each country has its own personality and its own way of doing things which is neither right nor wrong. It simply makes each country unique. So, why don't we just attempt to answer the pertinent midrange questions here and save the international culture discussions for another mail list, maybe "INTERNATIONAL-CULTURE-DEBATE-L"?

-----Original Message-----
From: D.BALE@handleman.com [mailto:D.BALE@handleman.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2000 8:13 AM
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject: Re: Y2K heads up - is this troub

Hey, while you're at it, don't forget "realize" (really, any of the -ize
words, isn't it?)

I go to BobWalder.com for my British syntax lessons. No bloody wonder us
yanks pulled the cord a couple hundred years ago! "Good on yer mate"? What
is a "Pensioner of Death"? (Or "PoD" for short?) And what the bloody h*ll is
a lorry? If it's a truck, then call it a truck for gosh sakes! <g>

Dan Bale
IT - AS/400
Handleman Company
248-362-4400 Ext. 4952