Fun_People Archive
7 Apr
Bug report... - Y2K Classics

Content-Type: text/plain
Mime-Version: 1.0 (NeXT Mail 3.3 v118.2)
From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Wed,  7 Apr 99 11:52:08 -0700
To: Fun_People
Precedence: bulk
Subject: Bug report... - Y2K Classics

X-Lib-of-Cong-ISSN: 1098-7649
X-http://www.langston.com/psl-bin/Fun_People.cgi
Forwarded-by: David H Elrod <dhelrod@rivendell.com>

[The following was taken from an actual bug report that I have seen myself.
 It shows an edited bug report from a customer and an edited response. I did
 the editing, to protect the customer and company involved.  - dhelrod]

CUSTOMER BUG REPORT:
  The [...]Library service "incorrectly"  assumes  the  year 2000 is a leap
  year.


RESPONSE:

  Thank you for your forward-looking bug report.

  Various system services, such as [the one you reported] assume that the
  year 2000 will be a leap year. Although one can never be sure of what will
  happen at some future time, there is strong historical precedent for
  presuming that the present Gregorian calendar will still be in affect by
  the year 2000. Since we also hope that [our system] will still be around
  by then, we have chosen to adhere to these precedents.

  The purpose of a calendar is to reckon time in advance, to show how many
  days have to elapse until a certain event takes place in the future, such
  as the harvest or the release of [the next version of our system]. The
  earliest calendars, naturally, were crude and tended to be based upon the
  seasons or the lunar cycle.

  The calendar of the Assyrians, for example, was based upon the phases of
  the moon. They knew that a lunation (the time from one full moon to the
  next) was 29 1/2 days long, so their lunar year had a duration of 354
  days. This fell short of the solar year by about 11 days.  (The exact time
  for the solar year is approximately 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46
  seconds.) After 3 years, such a lunar calendar would be off by a whole
  month, so the Assyrians added an extra month from time to time to keep
  their calendar in synchronization with the seasons.

  The best approximation that was possible in antiquity was a 19-year
  period, with 7 of these 19 years having 13 months (leap months). This
  scheme was adopted as the basis for the religious calendar used by the
  Jews. (The Arabs also used this calendar until Mohammed forbade shifting
  from 12 months to 13 months.)

  When Rome emerged as a world power, the difficulties of making a calendar
  were well known, but the Romans complicated their lives because of their
  superstition that even numbers were unlucky. Hence their months were 29
  or 31 days long, with the exception of February, which had 28 days. Every
  second year, the Roman calendar included an extra month called Mercedonius
  of 22 or 23 days to keep up with the solar year.

  Even this algorithm was very poor, so that in 45 BC, Caesar, advised by
  the astronomer Sosigenes, ordered a sweeping reform. By imperial decree,
  one year was made 445 days long to bring the calendar back in step with
  the seasons. The new calendar, similar to the one we now use was called
  the Julian calendar (named after Julius Caesar). It's months were 30 or
  31 days in length and every fourth year was made a leap year (having 366
  days). Caesar also decreed that the year would start with the first of
  January, not the vernal equinox in late March.

  Caesar's year was 11 1/2 minutes short of the calculations recommended by
  Sosigenes and eventually the date of the vernal equinox began to drift.
  Roger Bacon became alarmed and sent a note to Pope Clement IV, who
  apparently was not impressed. Pope Sixtus IV later became convinced that
  another reform was needed and called the German astronomer, Regiomontanus,
  to Rome to advise him. Unfortunately, Regiomontanus died of the plague
  shortly thereafter and the plans died as well.

  In 1545, the Council of Trent authorized Pope Gregory XIII to reform the
  calendar once more. Most of the mathematical work was done by Father
  Christopher Clavius, S.J. The immediate correction that was adopted was
  that Thursday, October 4, 1582 was to be the last day of the Julian
  calendar. The next day was Friday, with the date of October 15. For long
  range accuracy, a formula suggested by the Vatican librarian Aloysius
  Giglio was adopted. It said that every fourth year is a leap year except
  for century years that are not divisible by 400. Thus 1700, 1800 and 1900
  would not be leap years, but 2000 would be a leap year since 2000 is
  divisible by 400. This rule eliminates 3 leap years every 4 centuries,
  making the calendar sufficiently correct for most ordinary purposes. This
  calendar is known as the Gregorian calendar and is the one that we now
  use today.  (It is interesting to note that in 1582, all the Protestant
  princes ignored the papal decree and so many countries continued to use
  the Julian calendar until either 1698 or 1752. In Russia, it needed the
  revolution to introduce the Gregorian calendar in 1918.)

  This explains why [our system] chooses to treat the year 2000 as a leap
  year.

  Despite the great accuracy of the Gregorian calendar, it still falls
  behind very slightly every few years. If you are very concerned about this
  problem, we suggest that you tune in short wave radio station WWV, which
  broadcasts official time signals for use in the United States. About once
  every 3 years, they declare a leap second at which time you should be
  careful to adjust your system clock. If you have trouble picking up their
  signals, we suggest you purchase an atomic clock (not manufactured by [our
  company] and not a [system] option at this time).

© 1999 Peter Langston