fortunately, is the hard part.There is a need for this consistent adherence to the standard. Thisprovides a means whereby the interchange of date information can befacilitated between systems. Why is this important? Most computersystems are networked and sharing information between many differentoperating systems and programs through the use of common protocols, likeTCP/IP (Transport Control Protocol/Internet Protocol). Thus many systemsare sharing largely incompatible and/or incomplete (the source of the2000 problem) date information.The solution for this is to provide the complete date information in theform outlined by ISO 8601. The implementation of this is quite simple,and an OOP (Object Oriented Programming) approach is to define a dateclass and use a date object to represent chronological information. Anexample of this is the Java.util.date class provided in the SunMicrosystems JDK 1.0 package. This allows for all relevant informationto be dynamically shared between systems in a platform independentmanner.Local Fixes: Saving the DataIn many cases, especially in larger corporations, it's not the programthat is the valued information: It's the data. These applications (largemailing lists, financial information) open the door to a unique solutionthat solves two of the larger problems at once. Writing plug inenterprise wide replacements for the flawed application has twobenefits:1. Saves older information2. Offers the chance to enhance productivity through upgrading softwareand hardware.Allows independent startups to show up with "magic bullets" that ITmanagers that are unprepared will be looking for at any cost towards theend of the millennia. Unfortunately, it also has pitfalls: High R&Dcost. Whether absorbed by a independent software house or a clientcorporation, such programs are expensive to develop on a large scale,but will represent a large portion of the fixes for small Point-of-Saleterminals and imbedded firmware applicat...
