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In a message dated 9/8/99 5:53:55 AM Pacific Daylight Time, Peter2150@xxxxxxx
writes:
> Egads. I think this is almost hysteria. When I was involved with a lot
of
> programming albeit scientific, we used the 999 string, but first of all we
> used it as a negative ie -999 and usually used a floating point number
like
> -999.25. Even if that isn't the case variables had to be assigned
that
> number as an initialization, and then tested along the way after there was
> the possiblity of valid data. And yes as new uses came along, the new
data
> streams had to be checked, and once it was found that data contained that
> level of number, the test number had to be changed. Surely no one would
be
> testing for and end of data stream in the same manner they check a date to
> see of something is valid. If this event on 9-9-99 hits anyone, they
have
> one heck of an incompetent programmer, in my humble opinion.
Well, you surely weren't using negatives or floating points in date fields.
This is very common. I've seen it in lots of business programs. The typical
usage is when a sales order is being entered and a delivery date is unknown
at the time of entry, yet the program will not allow the order to be saved
without a valid date. 9/9/99 in essence became "TBA" (to be announced). The
usage then becomes so prevalent that everyone begins to count on it, and
plenty of programs too.
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