Y2K two - four digit date ?

[masinter]

Another Y2K problem in LispUsers DIGI-CLOCK function DC-UPDATE-TIME-ITEM.
THe patch to use 4-digit year affects all the apps that parse (DATE) output.
I've read Symbolics changed it to say that YY < 70 means 20YY and YY>=70 means 19YY.
This wouldn't solve all the Y2K problems popping up?

Or perhaps just some kind of system-wide scanner looking for instances
of IL:DATE that also do SUBSTRING or SUBATOM?

(See recent GREET0 bugfix).

[masinter]

also in a function on the file DIGI-CLOCK in LispUsers there's a call to SUBSTRING that's counting only two characters for the year. Doing this kind of string manipulation isn't really great form. But DIGI-CLOCK is fun.

made into a separate issue #1115 (good first time issue).

[masinter]

I think i intended to raise some kind of meta-discussion about the strategy for interface changes. It's difficult to articulate. Will turn this into a discusion.