When I was in grad school, I studied subjects related to methods of research mostly. Analysis of data is slow and ponderous without computers but computers were just then becoming available. Our program's major professor was himself learning about computers, which at that time meant only mainframes. Those were giant machines that would fill a normal room, were sometimes installed on specially built very level floor, and enclosed to keep them clean and at the optimum temperature and humidity.
Our professor gave the six or so of us the assignment to produce a computer program that could give the number of days between any two dates. Sounded ok but as time went on, we found more and more complexities, depending on which two dates were given. I wrote this about our computing adventures with the calendar back on December 27, 2015.
Since we cussed and re-punched our computer cards to try to meet the tests of our teacher for three years, I have great respect for the scholars, calculators, thinkers, and debaters in many lands for many governments and organizations over several millennia to try and find a humanly useable system that combines in a fairly simple and straightforward way, the days, the weeks, the months and the seasons. Three cheers for the calendars!
How many days ago was that?
That course finally finished and I got my one credit in computer science. That one credit has had a big influence on my life and Lynn's. Within a year of being hired as an assistant professor of education, I was also the director of academic computing. Over the years, I have designed and taught courses in various aspects of computing and its relation to our lives. So has Lynn, who initially went to grad school with the idea of studying the influence of computers on typical elementary school classrooms.
This blog post was inspired by a notice in Nat Torkington's "Four Short Links" that included wrinkles and individualities of the world's many calendars. There are enough exceptions and alternatives to make a programmer cry.
http://yourcalendricalfallacyis.com/
If you want to look at this interesting list of odds and ends about the calendars in use around the world, use Microsoft's Edge or Firefox. Chrome doesn't like it.
