I’m no techie so if I’m off base some of you are more than welcome to correct my view, but how in the world does a software programmer at Microsoft forget that 2008 was a leap year?

It seems that Microsoft’s portable media player, Zune, froze up all over the world yesterday. The problem? According to Microsoft the device evidently was programmed with the assumption that 2008 had 365 days instead of 366. So, I guess the system instructed the Zunes to take the extra day off. Microsoft said that if you just turn them off and then turn them back on today that the machine will figure out it’s OK to go back to work.

Not a big deal in the larger scheme of things but why do software designers do such a shoddy job? Airplanes don’t quit in the middle of a flight-thank God-because someone forgot to program something. Even GM cars don’t all quit running at the same time. Why can’t the software companies turn out a fundamentally sound product? 

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