Windowing

Windowing for Year 2000 is intended to let the software make an intelligent guess if the century is omitted. For example, it may assume that any two-digit year between 50 and 99 is a 20th century date (1950-1999) and anything else is 21st century (2000-2049).

The advantage is that it saves the trouble of converting data files as well as software, and it lets users go on putting in years with the century left off. Many vendors are using windowing. It usually means that existing applications written with their software (such as databases or spreadsheets) will go on working. Vendors don't know what kind of use people have been making of their software.

The problem is that different vendors make different assumptions. A single vendor may embed different assumptions in different applications which you expect to work together, such as components of an office suite. And the assumptions are likely to change as new versions of the software are delivered. This may cause new problems for users; in one package or one release "50" may means 1950, while in another it may mean 2050.

In any case, the vendor's assumption may not suit your data. For example, if you are paying pensions then your data probably relate primarily to people over 50 and you may want to assume any year after, say, "35" is 20th century ("35" means1935) while anything smaller is 21st century ("30" means 2030). This means that your default for "century-challenged" dates is that they lie between 1935 and 2034. On the other hand if you are a school, you may want the default to be 1975-2074.

So the moral is: be wary!


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Original material Copyright © Tony Law/Parkside Information Management 1997, 1998