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Re: RFE: Date Format
- To: David Lloyd <lloy0076 at rebel dot net dot au>,Gregory Leblanc <gleblanc at cu-portland dot edu>
- Subject: Re: DOCBOOK: RFE: Date Format
- From: Mark Wroth <mark at astrid dot upland dot ca dot us>
- Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 17:33:54 -0800
- Cc: Norman Walsh <ndw at nwalsh dot com>, docbook at lists dot oasis-open dot org
The simple answer to this is to state months as strings, rather than
numbers -- although that raises the issue of language, DocBook has
mechanisms in place to deal with that.
I actually woudn't mind seeing a content model that permits explicit markup
of the day/month/year without requiring it. But my problems with it are in
reading documents -- the ones I write I control the date format and can
prohibit the ambiguous formats.
(BTW, I'm an American, and I prefer day month year order. But I seem to
be in a minority)
Mark
David Lloyd wrote:
>Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2001 11:13:00 -0800 (PST)
>To: Gregory Leblanc <gleblanc@cu-portland.edu>
>Subject: Re: DOCBOOK: RFE: Date Format
>From: David Lloyd <lloy0076@rebel.net.au>
>Hmmm...
>
>>Since when are they not searchable? http://www.LinuxDoc.org/search.html
>>has options for what to search, and one of those is the mailing list
>>archives.
>So I didn't see the searchable part? I could draw conclusions about how
>this reflects on the LDP, but...
>
>>This is, at least in some small part, because the LDP mailing lists are
>>full of "flamers". Some long-time veterans just try to avoid those
>>"flame-easy" topics, for the sake of getting any work done.
>Some people make a suggestion, a RFE even, to make it easier on
>everyone. The point of the matter is that there is a problem with dates
>and soemone has attempted (alas, I am thinking not succesffully) to take
>it out of the LDP's hands and put it all on the style sheets. Which,
>incidentally, happen to render SGML documents in a style suitable to
>one's purpose, location and desire.
>
>>addition to DocBook, but I'm still listening. For the LDP, this issue
>>could be solved by getting non-profit status, and asking authors to give
>>the copyrights to the LDP. This would allow the LDP to make "editorial
>>changes", like putting the dates into a sane format.
>Rubbish. I wouldn't licence the LDP to have editorial charge of any of
>my work in a blue fit; as far as I can see they can't even decide what
>date format one should use despite the fact there's an ISO standard. I
>could make some particularly nasty remarks about Americans and
>Europoeans but I will resist doing so (1).
>This doesn't imply I wound not contribute. I would, however, submit work
>to it on its current understanding: if anyone wants to make a change,
>editorial or not they'll try their best to contact me.
>DL
>(1)
>As far as I can see the Americans want the month first. Period. End of
>story. And they're sticking to their guns...
>--
>You have a deformed comb,
>so go suck eggs...
Mark Wroth
<mark@astrid.upland.ca.us>