Item Description: Keeping current the Acme Way
Review Synopsis:
jeffa steps up to the podium
[feedback] testing ... is this thing on? ahem.
Manipulating dates in Perl is a common task, and it's no
wonder that there are a plethora of date modules in the
Date
namespace. As you can see in the following Power Point slide
[show slide that makes the Bioperl Class Diagram look easy], determining which Date module to use
is quite a chore. All of that just to find a date. Enter
Acme::Current.
Acme::Current seeks to [feedback] (can that be fixed?) ... anyhoo, it seeks to eliminate the complexity associated
with determining the current date. I installed the module
on my box yesterday, let's test it out:
use Acme::Current;
printf "It's now %04d/%02d/%02d.\n",
$Acme::Current::YEAR,
$Acme::Current::MONTH,
$Acme::Current::DAY
;
And when run, this yields:
It's now 2003/07/15.
Uh oh. Today is the 16th (is today the 16th?). Yes it appears to be the 16th. [shuffles notes] Ummmm.
help. [shuffles notes ... feedback].
Aha! I forgot to update the module today! [installs
module again].
There, let's run that code again:
use Acme::Current;
printf "It's now %04d/%02d/%02d.\n",
$Acme::Current::YEAR,
$Acme::Current::MONTH,
$Acme::Current::DAY
;
and we get the current date:
It's now 2003/07/16.
In conclusion, as long as you keep Acme::Current up to date
(a scheduled cron job should do the trick), Acme::Current
will keep you up to date with the current date ... as long
as you don't mind that date being GMT, or course. Thank
you.
[feedback]