Date classes

Hernan Wilkinson hernan.wilkinson at gmail.com
Tue Apr 17 13:10:49 UTC 2007


Just to give you a fast review of what I remember (I developed the model
that Maxi Taborda converted into Chalten):
1) Chronos supports many calendars, Chalten only the Gregorian Calendar
2) Chronos supports time zones, Chalten does not
3) Choros is huge (as you mentions), Chalten is more manageable (because it
just model the Gregorian Calendar)
4) Chronos lacks some abstractions that Chalten has, like Day of Month and
others (I don't remember now...there are a couple of mails that I and the
guy that created Chronos wrote about these issues, like one year ago)
5) Chalten is based on a arithmetic model that allows you to represent time
measurements easily (like 3 days, 5 months, etc). These objects are
polymorphic with numbers respect to the arithmetic messages such as +, -, *,
etc., that means that you can use them in arithmetic formulas
5) And of course, I like Chalten's model more that Chronos :-). For me it is
easier to use, but this is just a matter of taste...

There is a paper we wrote 2 years ago about the problems that the Smalltalk
date classes have and the advantages of having a better model. If you are
interested on having better date and time classes, I recommend you to read
the paper... you may not like it, but at least you will see other people
ideas...
We use that model (Chalten) in a production system and we believe it allowed
us to avoid many common mistakes related to financial systems.... but hey,
that's just a feeling, nothing I can prove formally.

I hope you can do something useful.
Bye,
Hernan.


On 4/16/07, J J <azreal1977 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> I have looked at Cronos but it is really huge, and the classes that come
> with the image are already very close.  I will have to look at Chalten,
> but
> what is wrong with a few upgrades to the classes that come with Squeak?
>
> >From: "Hernan Wilkinson" <hernan.wilkinson at gmail.com>
> >Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers
> >list<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
> >To: "The general-purpose Squeak developers
> >list"<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
> >Subject: Re: Date classes
> >Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 14:28:09 -0300
> >
> >Before doing something with Date, I recommend you to take a look at
> >"Chalten" or "Cronos". Chalten is in SqueakSource.... I think Cronos too.
> >
> >Hernan.
> >
> >On 4/16/07, J J <azreal1977 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>Hi all,
> >>
> >>I am doing some stuff with dates and I noticed the date classes that
> come
> >>with the default Squeak image are very nice and very close to having
> >>everything I would want.  But there are a few inconsistencies here and
> >>there, and things missing that would make things easier.
> >>
> >>So what is the procedure to updating this?  I think it's part of the
> core
> >>system so I probably can't just do a monicello package update
> >>somewhere?  Do
> >>I have to do it through mantis?
> >>
> >>Thanks,
> >>Jason
> >>
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> >
>
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