The problem with time-based bugs is that they are often subtle. I've had time-based bugs that only appear between 11pm and midnight; or only during daylight savings time; or only where the client is in a different timezone to the server.
Also, it is very common for business applications to deal with 'dates in the calendar', for example:
a) John's birthday is 26 August 1966
b) The loan was borrowed on 16 January 2006 and repaid on 9 September 2009.
I suspect most programmers will disagree with me, but in my experience it is NOT good practice to use a timestamp class to represent such things. It's better to use a class specifically designed to represent a date in the (Gregorian) calendar. In fact, I created an open-source Java class for this purpose:
http://calendardate.sourceforge.net/
Also, it is very common for business applications to deal with 'dates in the calendar', for example: a) John's birthday is 26 August 1966 b) The loan was borrowed on 16 January 2006 and repaid on 9 September 2009.
I suspect most programmers will disagree with me, but in my experience it is NOT good practice to use a timestamp class to represent such things. It's better to use a class specifically designed to represent a date in the (Gregorian) calendar. In fact, I created an open-source Java class for this purpose: http://calendardate.sourceforge.net/