>On Saturday, May 10, 2003, at 07:04 US/Eastern, Hans van Maanen wrote:
>
>>So, why not let the computer do what she's good at instead of 
>>giving her a formula nobody understands and everybody just has to 
>>believe?
>
>In a word ... speed.
>
>Counting is fine, but when speed matters you'll want a good algorithm.
>
>-- Chip


To both:

In my experience, speed isn't the main issue here -- but rather 
getting the right answer.

Days between dates is not a simple matter of counting, but rather 
counting using certain rules, such as a week is 7 days, a month can 
be 28, 29, 30, 31 days and a year may be 365 OR 366 days long. Plus, 
in man's past even those "constants" have not held up. There are 
man-made rules that are applied to the natural day "event" that those 
rules are the algorithm.

So, counting between dates may appear trivial, but the rules aren't.

tedd