Stephen Colebourne said:
Yes, that was a real eye-opener to me. It means the Java developers could add negative-DST support to Java without changing Java's documented API. From my point of view it's a bug fix that's needed for POSIX compatibility anyway. With Java, it is wrong to assume that the documented API is the only issue when considering a change.
Then how do I, as a developer, know what I am and am not promised by the API? That's the whole point of having an API and documenting it - it's a contract between the two parties and you can only rely on what is in the contract. That's the basis on which we wrote the C Standard. There may be ambiguities but if it's not mentioned at all then you can't rely on it. (The classic example in C is that a "byte" is not required to be 8 bits, just at least 8 bits. I've programmed on a machine where a byte - the smallest addressable object - was 16 bits.) -- Clive D.W. Feather | If you lie to the compiler, Email: clive@davros.org | it will get its revenge. Web: http://www.davros.org | - Henry Spencer Mobile: +44 7973 377646