Re: MRP600 - BPCS 4.0.02

[pluta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

I'm sure this is not the case.

The files have been changed to contain (dates - 28 years).  The programs
have been modified to add 28 years prior to displaying or printing these
date fields.  Date fields have 28 years subtracted from them before being
written to files.

All of this is transparent to the users of the system.

Would you like to hear more about how this works?  Check out the website of
www.unbeatenpathintl.com .  They use this approach for Y2K issues.

--------------------

Since I helped develop Focus/2000 (a true remediation solution), you should
probably take what I say with a grain of salt, but there are problems with the
+/- 28 encoding method.  Just to start, you will be unable to link with any
remediated databases in other companies (or even other sites within your own
company, if they choose not to use the 28 bandaid!).

Even more insidious is the damage to users.  In these days of data warehousing
and user inquiry tools, +/- 28 simply destroys those capabilities for the user,
because they have to remember to add or subtract the 28 days as necessary
whenever they want to query data using SQL or QUERY/400 .  Far from being
"transparent", it means they have to key in year 71 when they mean 99.  (And how
many are going to mess up subtracting 28 from 03?)  And try joining a 28-encoded
file with a normal one; headaches everywhere.

Finally, every program you write from now on will also have to use that bandaid.
With a remediated database, you can at least begin to move towards a truly
century-enabled system.  With an encoded database, you will never be able to do
that.

The +/- 28 solution is a temporary bandaid best suited for those installations
that cannot afford to remediate RIGHT NOW.  But unless you have a small
database, no user inquiries and no need to ever join your data with any outside
data (like, say, the Internet?), then you need to look at a permanent solution.

Okay, enough soapbox.

Joe Pluta
www.zappie.net


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