[partomniscient]

Some companies used this approach for Y2K, deciding to use a pivot similar to the above to decide whether to prefix 19 or 20 (or 21 or 22). It made the fix easy, but they didn't expand the field size from YY to CCYY, so all kinds of stupid errors await us in the future.

I was young at the time, and I did what management told me to do but felt icky about it because I knew it was hugely inferior and they didn't know what they were doing, and I was just a tiny cog in the team doing all the changes, most of which thought it was fine... Left that place long ago.

What you recommend is an easy fix, and might work most of the time, but its wrong and will cause infuriating problems, probably making others suffer your past deeds. Just do it properly once, first time.

[dumbfoundded]

I completely agree and it's why I wrote it as a joke.

Companies/Tools/Projects that plan to exist beyond 2038 should just migrate their code.