Re: Standards question on edited fields

From: Judson McClendon (judmc_at_sunvaley0.com)
Date: 01/17/04 

Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 17:18:40 GMT

"LX-i" <lxi0007@netscape.net> wrote:
> Judson McClendon wrote:
> > "LX-i" <lxi0007@netscape.net> wrote:
> >
> >>We have a field that is 9 characters - a 2-digit day, a 3-character
> >>month, and a 4-digit year. It's defined as follows...
> >>
> >>01 My-Date.
> >> 03 My-Day Pic 9(02).
> >> 03 My-Month Pic X(03).
> >> 03 My-Year Pic 9(04).
> >
> >
> > Why would you store a date in such a way?
>
> Who said I was storing it?
>
> > Dates in that format would
> > not sort correctly, and it seems you would not present such a format to
> > a human directly without editing, as your question demonstrates. I can't
> > see a reason for storing a date in such a format, because it would need
> > to be modified for either internal computer use or external human use,
> > making it useless in its current form. Is there a valid reason for this, or
> > is it just sloppy design? :-)
>
> I can't think of a military-format date in our database. However, being
> in the military, we have many requirements to display dates this way
> (today would be "16 Jan 04" most places, "16 Jan 2004" in a few). We
> either display the current date, or convert a data out of the database,
> which is usually stored in YYYY-MM-DD (relational) or YYYYDDD (DMS).
>
> So, it's not a sloppy design at all - and there is a valid reason.

I believe you, and having spent four years programming at command
level for the Air Force myself, I understand the requirement for such
display and print formats. I'm just curious what your specific reason
is for having a date that is (currently) stored inside the computer in
that form? I didn't say 'permanent storage'. :-)

Perhaps it's changed a lot in the three decades since I was in the USAF,
but I saw lots of crummy design. Lots of good design too, of course. :-) 

-- 
Judson McClendon      judmc@sunvaley0.com (remove zero)
Sun Valley Systems     http://sunvaley.com
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."

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