Re: Duration Calculation

[Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen <thunderaxiom@xxxxxxxxx>]

Jon Paris skrev  den 27-01-2008 19:44:
> On 27-Jan-08, at 1:00 PM, java400-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
>
>   
> > You can load it into a java.util.Date, extract the corresponding  
> > number
> > of milliseconds since 1970.01.01, and you can then take the difference
> > and round down to number of days.
> >     
>
> This is part of the current problem - the date related classes seem  
> to be trying to deal with Daylight Savings Time or something and when  
> your dates cross the changeover point the results are inaccurate.
>
> Besides - doesn't it strike you as thoroughly silly that one should  
> even have to contemplate "playing" with milliseconds to get a count  
> of a number of days!  It is insane that such steps should be required  
> in a so-called "modern" language.
>
>   
Every language has its warts.  Hence the recommendation of a third party 
package.

The nastiness of the Date + Calendar routines - been there, ground my 
teeth - is well summarized in 
http://www.jroller.com/cpurdy/entry/the_seven_habits_of_highly.  If it 
helps, Calendar was written by IBM folks :)



> Buying a package to solve a basic language deficiency just sticks in  
> my craw I'm afraid.
If I had suggested you should _buy_ anything, I'd mentioned the price.  
This particular package is open source and free:  "Joda is licenced 
under an Apache style licence", which should be ok regardless where you 
want to use it.