[edgyswingset]

> Don't bring in more code than you need.

I see it as a sliding scale. If I'm parsing 1 string with the same date format into 1 object, I'm not going to pull in some general purpose time parsing library - I'll write the 10 lines of code myself, a few unit tests, and be happy.

If in the future I start having to deal with different date strings and some need to do more than just throw up a single date on a page somewhere, I'll get a date/time library.

[amelius]

You could also use the third party library for your unit tests.