• Leap-Year Trouble At Petrol Pumps

    From Lawrence D'Oliveiro@21:1/5 to All on Thu Feb 29 00:17:46 2024
    I assume this sort of thing <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/february-29-allied-fuel-pumps-around-nz-ground-to-a-halt-as-systems-forget-leap-year/XEQBK5JLBZG6LO3VGUQ6Q2WGC4/>
    happens because people are still trying to roll their own date
    routines, instead of using the abundance of standard off-the-shelf
    libraries that already know how to deal with all the well-known
    pitfalls.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From BungleBob@21:1/5 to Lawrence D'Oliveiro on Thu Feb 29 18:17:01 2024
    On 2024-02-29 00:17:46 +0000, Lawrence D'Oliveiro said:

    I assume this sort of thing <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/february-29-allied-fuel-pumps-around-nz-ground-to-a-halt-as-systems-forget-leap-year/XEQBK5JLBZG6LO3VGUQ6Q2WGC4/>

    happens because people are still trying to roll their own date
    routines, instead of using the abundance of standard off-the-shelf
    libraries that already know how to deal with all the well-known
    pitfalls.

    And why would a petrol pump even need to bother about the date?!? It
    shouldn't. The payment system would need to know the date, but
    everybody else's payments systems are working fine and it's largely
    irrelevant that the bank statement is a day out.

    Just yet another reason to NOT have silly "pay at pump" and
    "robo-stations" with no staff. Just pay at the counter like a normal
    human being rather than a lazy-ass.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Lawrence D'Oliveiro@21:1/5 to All on Thu Feb 29 07:26:01 2024
    Seems like all the service-station chains are dependent on the same
    payments provider, and that’s why they all went down today <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/february-29-allied-fuel-pumps-around-nz-ground-to-a-halt-as-systems-forget-leap-year/XEQBK5JLBZG6LO3VGUQ6Q2WGC4/>.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From David Goodwin@21:1/5 to All on Fri Mar 1 08:52:57 2024
    In article <urp40d$c1dv$1@dont-email.me>, bunglebob@thejungle.com
    says...

    On 2024-02-29 00:17:46 +0000, Lawrence D'Oliveiro said:

    I assume this sort of thing <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/february-29-allied-fuel-pumps-around-nz-ground-to-a-halt-as-systems-forget-leap-year/XEQBK5JLBZG6LO3VGUQ6Q2WGC4/>

    happens because people are still trying to roll their own date
    routines, instead of using the abundance of standard off-the-shelf libraries that already know how to deal with all the well-known
    pitfalls.

    And why would a petrol pump even need to bother about the date?!? It shouldn't. The payment system would need to know the date, but
    everybody else's payments systems are working fine and it's largely irrelevant that the bank statement is a day out.

    Indeed the payment system would need to know the date. And in this
    instance it appears to be the payment system that failed to know the
    date correctly.

    Presumably the payment terminals at the pumps failed to account for the
    leap year and were trying to send transactions dated for 01-MAR-2024 to
    the payment provider on 29-FEB-2024 and the payment provider was
    rejecting these transactions from the future as it should.

    Just yet another reason to NOT have silly "pay at pump" and
    "robo-stations" with no staff. Just pay at the counter like a normal
    human being rather than a lazy-ass.

    I prefer not having to walk into the store and queue while someone else
    buys a coffee or whatever. Even worse are those stations where you have
    to walk into the store *before* pumping fuel. I've got places to be and
    more important things to do. If I can spend 10 seconds doing the payment
    rather than a few minutes I gladly will.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)