DateLib (TM) usage areas
It has been found that the DateLib (TM) might be useful within software for the following areas:
| Logistics |
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Within the logistic area one has to deal with departure and arrival times.
When transporting over different timezone things could become complicated.
This happens especially when the daylight saving time will be changed at
different dates within different countries.
The correct handling of daylight saving time might become important on the days when the DST changes from winter to summer or vice versa, because here you will loose or gain an additional hour - that can impact on profit. Another problem is that one needs to know the holidays within the countries to which items will be delivered. Some of these holidays, like Easter and dependent days, are dynamic and not static! Another point that might be of interest within the logistics area is the conversion from weekday/week/year into day/month/year and vice versa. The very flexible auto analyzing parsers might help when handling different date/time format strings of different countries. |
| Financial |
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Within the financial market you have also to deal with date/time
calculations. Mostly these calculations are not so problematic regarding time
zones and daylight saving times. But when dealing with stocks around the
world, it might be very important to handle time zones and DST correctly
since it might be a matter of millions of dollars in profit when accidentally
calculating one hour too early or too late.
Dynamic holidays for different countries have the same importance as within the logistic area. When no one works on these days in another country one can not conduct any business. The handling of different calendar systems might be of the same usage when dealing with China or other countries which have their own calendar system. |
| Statistical software |
| Software dealing with statistics has to evaluate often large sets of data over a given period of time in different places around the world. Therefore dealing with time elements is of extreme importance for statistical analyses and includes the handling of time zones as well as daylight savings time zones. In addition it would be of interest to make statistical analyses for only a few weekdays or days related to one another by complicated rules. |
| Project management |
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Software for project management which deals with date and time includes a
very important factor. One has to handle resources over time and must make
certain that these resources are available at a given time. Precise calendar
handling is important for dynamical holidays as well as vacations of staff
members etc. Since there is not only a difference in local time, time zones will become of importance when planning worldwide tasks. Project management is often based on weeks - so weeknumbers are an important factor here. Just to mention an example here: in the United States a week starts on Sunday while in Germany a week starts on Monday. This phenomena will naturally result in different weeknumbers for some years. |
| Historical database |
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Databases dealing with historical events will also profit from the
DateLib (TM) since the library can handle a large time range in a
historically correct setting. This allows one to calculate differences
between different events as well as some other interesting operations giving
somebody new insight into historical relations.
Most importantantly the Gregorian calendar reform will be handled correctly. |
| Scheduling |
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When scheduling events, meetings etc. the DateLib (TM) allows more
flexibility than you know from normal applications. For example it would be
possible to calculate the next valid date should the user give an invalid one
within a string gadget. Also it is possible to handle dynamic holidays,
events etc. - instead of using a static table for each new year. Differences
between two dates could now be handled over large ranges as days or as
years/months/days.
The Calendar could display the moon phases as we know them from paper calendars. Last but not least the powerful parsers would allow the user to input date/time strings in each format as desired. In addition the parsers could be used when reading foreign data files with unknown date/time representations. |
| Internet |
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Within Internet applications the DateLib (TM) could develop it's full power,
because within this area you have to deal with different time zones, daylight
saving times which change on different days within different countries. Also
there are many different date/time/time format strings around where each user
from a different country seems to use another format. Also the 21 supported
languages for weekday and month names come in handy.
Acting in a worldwide environment a calendar week might start with Monday or Sunday (maybe with Saturday) - this will also be handled. Converting from one calendar system into another one is important as long as there is no definitive world-wide calendar system. |
| Year 2000 |
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The DateLib (TM) was developed not specifically for the Year 2000 Problem.
However it is extremely useful in this area.
When trying to identify incorrect program code the library isn't very
helpful, but it can help in other areas.
Using the DateLib (TM) is like outsourcing the date functions which are often incorrect. The advantages are shown as follows:
It is known that the Year 2000 Problem will repeat itself in 2038, 2078, 2100 and some other years - depending on the computer platform. But when you use the DateLib (TM) you are free of this worry - it will do the job! |