[This is a post in a new, probably long-ass, series.  You may want to begin at the beginning.  I do not promise that the next post in the series will be next week.  Just that I will eventually finish it, someday.  Unless I get hit by a bus.]

Last time I went into more details about how I might go about creating a new date module, and what I would expect it to achieve.  This time we clear out some housekeeping and try to nail down a design strategy.

Before I get into that, I should point out something fundamental: I’m still in the design process.  I once read a story about Harlan Ellison¹ in which he wrote a short story, in real time, with fans watching as he did so.  As he finished each page, he posted it up on the wall (or wherever) for them to read.  The point of the story, I believe, was about revision, and to illustrate an extreme situation which might be the only case in the world where you actually couldn’t go back and fix what you wrote at the beginning.

So this is a bit like that.  Except that I won’t consider myself stuck with whatever I manage to produce at the beginning here; if I make a mistake or stumble across a better way later, I’ll go back and fix it.  If someone points out something in the comments that makes better sense than what I had in mind, I may completely change direction.  Hell, if someone comes along and says “hey, have you looked at Date:Dohickey?” and I go and look at Date::Dohickey, and it turns out that Date::Dohickey really does do everything I want, I may very well scrap the whole idea.  So I wanted to give everyone fair warning that there may be sharp turns ahead.  So hold on tight.

[This is a post in a new, probably long-ass, series.  I do not promise that the next post in the series will be next week.  Just that I will eventually finish it, someday.  Unless I get hit by a bus.]

So, last time I laid out my dissatisfaction with existing date modules and described what I was looking for in a feature set out of a potential new module.  Well, a feature set is a good thing to have, but it’s a lower-level view.  Let’s take a step back and try to pin down exactly what need I want my date module to satisfy; that is, what niche am I hoping it it will fill?  When you’re looking for a date module to solve a particular problem, which problems will lead you to this one?¹