Hi, Lets end this thread quickly - I don't think it warrants a flame war. I took a hard line on the "toddler" bit as there is a tendency for some, often new members in the community to jump to conclusions about what is a pretty elegent platform (Squeak), and presume oversight or errors by default. Hence the "bona fide..." bit :) Further, arguments starting with "...everyone knows X..." is just not a reasonable starting point, post Enlightenment and outside theocracies. Many things about date and time libraries are just not obvious, which is why by Java 1.2 they already had 6 different date/time classes (if I recall). A better approach is to enquire as to why something is the way it is. By way of example, the loose consensus at the time was to follow the draft ANSI spec only, rather than pay ANSI to "get our spec back". Hell, my initials are all over the code, just ask. Cheers Brent the Tolerant and Approachable