Thought Y2k was bad ? Wait till 2038

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-09-06 08:24pm

Can you just imagine a con artist trying to unload a mainframe on some unsuspecting customer just before Y2K?

"Yes, it's fully Y2K compliant, and includes superfast core memory..."

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2003-09-13 01:33am

Let's start selling some "Y2038 protection" software to scan systems for the outdated time.h library in order to rip off, er... "help protect" users.

You can not make modifications to a staticaly linked library such as time.h once a program has been compiled. That is one of the reasons why DLLs are so popular.

I am afraid the solution is not that simple. Every application that was written with that library will have to be recompiled. That means Windows, Office, Quake 3, Halo etc would have to be recompiled. And then you have to distribute the new program to every user in the world who would have to reinstall almost every software in their PC.

Also recompiling may not be easy for some programs that may rely on a 32 bit time_t. They would fail to compile if they size of time_t is changed.

Can you explain a bit, what this means, and what practically would fall under that?

It means that after Jan 1st 2038 everything written in C/C++ will consider the next day to be Dec 31st 1970 instead of Jan 2nd 2038. Since C/C++ is the language virtualy everything from operating systems to games are written in this could cause serious damage.

Does anyone even use C/C++ anymore?

C/C++ is the greatest programming language. Most software from Windows to Games are written in them. They are the most powerful language available.

I believe IIRC that C/C++ is still THE language to use in game programming.

Not only Games but everything else from MS Office to Photoshop are written in C/C++.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2003-09-13 01:34am

On the plus side, we've got 35 years to take care of the problem.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2003-09-13 01:45am

Howedar wrote:On the plus side, we've got 35 years to take care of the problem.

Agreed. A note to those who use Visual Studio.NET. Even if you do not write your software in C/C++ it still runs on the .NET framework which was written in C++ so you too are affected by this bug.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-09-13 01:52am

Two words that sum up my take on .NET:

C Flat.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2003-09-13 02:05am

Crayz9000 wrote:Two words that sum up my take on .NET:

C Flat.

.NET is having immense effect on everyones lives. It is something you can not live without and yet something many programmers do not like.

However we made great changes when Windows 95 was introduced. We succesfuly made the transition to Win 32 programming from DOS programming. Then around 1997 people starting learning the MFC. So .NET is just another stop in the road. I am sure with time most programmers would be using .NET like they use the MFC today.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-09-13 02:14am

We made great changes. So what? We got a funky user interface that was ripped off of Xerox, and legendary unreliability. The only thing that Microsoft really gave the software industry was a new way to market stuff...

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2003-09-13 02:21am

Crayz9000 wrote:We made great changes. So what? We got a funky user interface that was ripped off of Xerox, and legendary unreliability. The only thing that Microsoft really gave the software industry was a new way to market stuff...

Agreed. Microsoft makes you pay outrageous amounts of money for their software. No wonder Microsoft is a prime target of software pirates.