I just ran across this wiki about the Newton 2010 date problem (Props to StevenF) – after 18:48:31 on January 5, 2010 a NewtonScript int variable overflows, and well, problems happen.

I know when we were working on the Newton in the late 90′s, we weren’t really considering 2010 – in reality who really does? That was 14 years away, we were bound to still be around by then, right?

Well, maybe not. Maybe your code is going to last that long. Maybe some structures or patterns you’ve designed seem fine, but have some upper boundary that you’d NEVER HIT.

Start looking for those problems now. If you find them, stop, and spend the time to fix them. If you can’t because of a fixed API… well.. what do you do then? Make sure you fail gracefully.