Day of week routine

[Henry Spencer]

In article <107107 at sun.Eng.Sun.COM> jamesa at arabian.Sun.COM (James D. Allen) writes:
>> The mind boggles at how many programs had to be fixed to know about the
>> new year numbering...
>
>Are you sure?  Even the most loyal of Japanese programmers should have
>anticipated outliving the aging emperor...

Even the stupidest of North American programmers should anticipate that the
first two digits of the year will change not too far in the future... but
in fact often this gets botched.  Forecasting programs are already running
into this:  1975 was a bad year for 25-year forecasts, and 1990 will most
probably be a rough year for 10-year forecasts.  The chaos in 2000 AD will
be something to behold.

What will happen when the 32-bit Unix date goes negative in mid-January
2038 does not bear thinking about... :-)
-- 
Van Allen, adj: pertaining to  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
deadly hazards to spaceflight. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry at zoo.toronto.edu