Global Date Advancement is a feature whereby the aging offset is specified only once for all date fields being aged. Programmers don't want the aging offset attached to each individual date field, because they want to avoid having to repeatedly enter the same offset for every field. The Bottom Line NASA proved the value of using realistic simulation techniques. A good simulation can go a long way toward preparing you for the real thing. That's why realistic date aging for Year 2000 testing is a must.
Time is of the essence.
IT organizations are finding it hard enough to attract and keep good people for Year 2000 projects. They certainly don't need to have those people spend precious time on new development projects to add date aging user exits or manual work around procedures. For Year 2000 projects, IT organizations need tools which have the broadest range of built-in functions, and which can do the best job of enabling Year 2000 conditions to be realistically simulated. Steve Gerrard, whose unremediated Julian birth date is x'51157F', has toiled long in the IT industry-both as a developer and as a software provider. He is currently Director of Product Marketing for Princeton Softech.