[whatwg] internationalization/localization

[Matthew Raymond]

Martin Kutschker wrote:
> PS: 2004-06-29 is great for implicit sorting, but I would never ever write
 > a date this way in any other context than filenames, etc (when writing in
 > German).

    I actually use that format to for filenames. :)

    The current spec uses a specific standard for submitting the date 
and time (ISO8601). (If the server needs it in a different format, is 
should perform an operation on the data before storing it.) As for the 
date the user inputs, the UA should use the user's locale to determine 
the timezone.

    Theoretically, a webmaster might want to control how dates or time 
are entered. However, they can do this using a series of patterned text 
boxes or <select> elements. Also, to get a time in a specific timezone, 
the webmaster can use the "local-datetime", then have the server adjust 
the returned time by the number of hours and minutes off of UTC.

    In short, let the User Agent developers worry about giving people 
the right date and time formats for their locales. Webmasters will 
adjust and eventually learn to appreciate the uniform handling of dates 
and times. With regard to date and time, the spec is perfectly fine as-is.