Earlier this week, on another list, I encountered someone who was proposing to use STCK TOD values in a new system.
He should of course have chosen STCKE values instead. At 23:58:43 on 17 September 2042 the IBM mainframe TOD clock, 64-bit STCK value will overflow. STCKE values do not have this defect; the portions of them that are incremented are unsigned 14-byte, 8 x 14 = 112-bit values; and 2^112 - 1 is an adequately large number. The slogan "Do not reinvent the wheel" sounds virtuous, at worst innocuous. In fact its use is an all but infallible indicator of sanctimony mixed with sloth. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
