!!!!! deluge script just stopped working -- date not accepted as a valid parameter type

!!!!! deluge script just stopped working -- date not accepted as a valid parameter type

This method:

string utils.getDateAsParameter(date inDate)
{
    return inDate.toString("MM/dd/yyyy");
}

stopped working on Thursday.  When I checked creator had "magically" dropped the datatype of the inDate parameter so the method signature looked like this:  

string utils.getDateAsParameter( inDate)

apparently undesignated parameters default to INTEGER type because all the methods that call this one failed with incompatible parameter types. 

When I try to save the method with "(date inDate)"  I get this error:

mproper Statements/Expressions found 

com.adventnet.appcreator.populate.PopulateException: Unknown Expression Table/Type: 

I have shared the app with support -- this error has killed my application.   I need help quickly