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Re: RFE: Date Format



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>


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