Joe Barwell wrote on Thu, 22 May 2003 23:24:28 +1300:

>On Thu, 22 May 2003, Nigel Garvey
><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>There are two later optimisations of the last line. Richard Hartman's:
>>
>>  set monthNum to 1 + (theDate - b) div 2500000
>>
>>... and mine:
>>
>>  set monthNum to (theDate - b + 3944592) div 2629728
>
>It took me a while to see their point, but is their "advantage"
>actually measurable?  I suppose with a g3/g4 running a zillion
>iterations one might notice something...

Well, true. Even on slower machines, you could write almost any old junk
here - provided that the right answer came out at the other end - and the
user would be none the wiser. But to scripters who find Emmanuel's
solution interesting, elegant, satisfying, and admirable, the two
optimisations would also be of interest. Hence my mention of them.

>2 groszy

[Manfully resists the temptation to get sidetracked into a discussion of
some very interesting Polish number grammar. :-)]

NG