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At 15:36 5/27/97 -0400, you wrote: >telsci wrote: >> >> The thing that's WRONG with this implementation is that we have spent time >> and money working on a 50 year postponement of the problem. Are we all >> assuming the AS/400 will be obsolete by then? > >Maybe not - but any source code you have from today that you would want >to maintain with PDM probably would be obsolete (as would PDM?). :-) Don't count on code becoming obsolete! That's hopw the industry got into this 2K problem in the first place. I ran into my first system date problem back in '74 with DEC's RSTS-E operating system release, a release which would have crashed 6 months after it was sent out because the system date was based upon a set # of days since the first 11/xx series machine was produced. You CANNOT assume that ANY code will be obsolete and be safe. Code has a tendancy to survive and reproduce (even if your original program is removed and deleted, can you be CERTAIN that nobody cloned parts of it? Remember, the FFA is still BUYING obsolete hardware to run it's ancient flight control software. And the IRS was (may still be) using IBM calculator code written in the '50's.... Even one-shot file repair utility programs seem to live far longer than the programmer ever expected, I've seen lots of systems with FIXxxx programs which had become part of the "standard" toolset on the system. All you do by postponing the problem, is increase the SIZE of the problem.... I've had customers within the past 2 years who absolutely refused to permit new data structures to use date fields large enough to handle century ends, in order to be consistant with the rest of their system (evidently they want the whole shebang to go at once:) ((End soapbox)) Charles Barnard Wizard of Odd 1451 East Mason St. Greeen Bay, WI 54301-3330 voice 414 436 9009 fax 414 436 9010 net wizodd@netnet.net * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * This is the Midrange System Mailing List! To submit a new message, * * send your mail to "MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com". To unsubscribe from * * this list send email to MAJORDOMO@midrange.com and specify * * 'unsubscribe MIDRANGE-L' in the body of your message. Questions * * should be directed to the list owner / operator: david@midrange.com * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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