h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I can reveal that date differences are easy to resolve. It does not require a table for two, ordinary years and leap years, just a slick approach. Poetry, such as "30 days hath September, April ..." is also unnecessary, and difficult to write. Just count the days, and all is well.

This ancient is fearfully aware of the passage of time. Is there any interest in everyday calendar calculations any more, or does everyone trust Uncle Bill to count microseconds since 1/1/80 for them?

Uncle Bill is good unless you want to go back into the past. But I believe many copies of Excel will stop working in 2030 due to the 'Y2K' bug.

Gnomon, you have me beaten - I had not noticed that it does work. If I ever do, the persistence of that vision will become known.

More certainly, it takes less space and time to get the day in a year from a date, and conversely, by pure code, than it does to store and access the calendar tables usually used to achieve such feats. Now is THAT interesting, or am I over-excelling again?

No. Table lookup is always faster than doing hard things like multiplication.

I am enjoying this conversation, but let me back away now, agreeing with you only up to a point. I have just put in a contribution "What is Originality" which may help to explain. I very sincerly hope to talk with you again.

There is an accurate, short macro for Excel, which will calculate the date of Easter, published on page 152 of the March 2006 issue of Personal Computer World.

But it's only January 2006 now! I'll have to wait another month to find out the details.