Article:		Making Sense of Java's Dates
Subject:		Minor correction
Date:		2003-06-05 01:28:26
From:		anonymous2
The french for January is "Janvier", not "Jenvier". Yeah, I know, picky picky... :)

Showing messages 1 through 1 of 1.

• badly designed, over-complicated garbage
  2008-04-30 16:04:00  Anonymous8888 [View]
  
  
  The java calendar class is just *horrible* to use and unfortunately, normally unavoidable.
  
  Problem 1: Why can't I do this?
  
  Calendar cal = new Calendar();
  
  I can do this...
  Calendar cal = new GregorianCalendar();
  
  But seeing as GregorianCalendar is the only subclass of Calendar, it makes no sense to prevent me from doing this!
  
  Problem 2: This isn't specific to the calendar class really, but a general moan about java API designers - you essentially have to know the workings of the black box in order to use it. Eg.
  
  cal.set(Calendar.MONTH, 7);
  cal.set(Calendar.YEAR,2006);
  
  Yuk. The documentation of the class isn't particularly clear, leaving you to hunt for examples to copy.
  
  Problem 3: Complete inconsistency and lack of intuitiveness - Months are zero-based, but Days (and years) are 1-based. This means that the following...
  
  cal.set(Calendar.MONTH, 4);
  cal.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 4);
  
  ...gives the 4th of March!!! I've been tripped up by this SO many times, especially as if you're going to actually *use* this date with another system (such as using it with a database) you have to remember to add one.