RE: Silly season

["Roeland M.J. Meyer" <rmeyer () mhsc com>]

> Greg A. Woods
> Sent: Thursday, December 23, 1999 11:28 AM
>
> [ On Wednesday, December 22, 1999 at 23:58:21 (-0500), Andrew
> Brown wrote: ]
> > Subject: Re: Silly season
> >
> > it would be better, imho, to go to a 64 bit signed time_t, but that
> > would be a major flag day.
>
> "would be"!?!?!  :-)
>
> No, it *WILL* be an important day, but it will happen on a per-system
> basis (and perhaps per-protocol basis if indeed there are any network
> protocols carrying time_t or similar values).

Those of us implementing 64-bit OS (Alpha, Merced, etc) get this as part of
the package. However, this does NOT correct databases that already have a
32-bit time_t (which shouldn't be the case, but is a good probability [lazy
coders]).
Ergo, even the fact that 90% of the computers will be 64-bit safe by 2038
won't save us. Stored data will have to be checked and the conversion will
obsolete many backup tapes. What I am saying is that there is still a
data-migration issue, just like Y2K. The problem is only transitive in
protocols and running code, there is not much inertia there, but the real
problem is data in long-term storage, where inertia is the name of the game.